Spotted dick bread
Spotted dick can take a while to make what with the steaming, but by adding the delicious flavours to soda bread you save time in the kitchen. With all that extra time, this is also a great time to make your own butter too!
Ingredients
For the bread
- 500g/1lb 2oz plain flour
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 tbsp sugar
- 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 50g/1¾oz vegetarian suet
- 100²µ/3½´Ç³ú candied peel
- 100²µ/3½´Ç³ú currants
- 1 orange, zest only
- 1 lemon, zest only
- 400ml/14fl oz buttermilk
For the butter
- 600ml/20fl oz double cream
- 1 tbsp sea salt
Method
Preheat the oven to 220C/200C Fan/Gas 7 and line a baking tray with baking paper.
Put the flour, salt, sugar, bicarb, suet, candied peel, currants and citrus zest into a bowl and mix really well.
Make a little well in the centre and pour in the buttermilk, using a palette knife to bring the mixture together. Tip it out onto a work surface and gently bring the dough together, without kneading it – you don’t want to overwork it.
Place the dough onto the prepared baking tray and flatten it down, then use a sharp knife to make four cuts all the way through, to create eight triangles. Bake in the oven for 30 minutes.
While the bread is baking, make the butter. Have ready a colander lined with muslin (or a thin piece of cotton) ready.
Put the cream into a mixer, or use a hand-held mixer, and whisk. It will quickly get to stiff peaks – just keep it going and then it will separate. As soon as it separates it will change fast – you will be able to hear it. There will be a lot of sloshing, where the water separates from the fat. What you should be left with is crumbly-looking butter and liquid in the base of the bowl.
Tip the butter into the prepared colander and leave it for the excess liquid to drain off.
As the dripping slows down, give it a good squeeze to get rid of some more moisture. Add the salt and mix through, then set aside the amount you need for the bread and refrigerate the rest. It will keep in the fridge for a month.
When the bread comes out of the oven, leave it to cool on a rack for 15 minutes (if you can resist the urge not to eat it straight away!)
To serve, pull away the triangular wedges of warm bread and spread them with your fresh butter.
Recipe Tips
If you have no buttermilk, you can make your own by adding 2 tablespoons of lemon juice to 400ml/14fl oz of full-fat milk. If you have any bread left over, slice it and freeze it. You can pop it straight into the toaster from frozen.
