Soda bread is a winner for getting a loaf on the table in no time at all, given that it is made with bicarbonate of soda and no knead for yeast. It’s just perfect slathered with Irish butter and works well with the addition of all kinds of ingredients - fig, rosemary, treacle, and seeds, for example. Just one more instruction - as Karen Burns-Booth says - “don’t forget to make the cross on top of the bread so the fairies can fly out.”