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A new type of leaven

Appears in
Oats in the North, Wheat from the South: The history of British Baking, savoury and sweet

By Regula Ysewijn

Published 2020

  • About
Bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) arrived in kitchens in the 1840s. Unlike the reaction of yeast and sourdough, which needs time and warmth to work, bicarbonate of soda acts quickly, which is why the breads it produces are called ‘quick breads’. It is usually used for bakes made with flour with a low protein or gluten content like rye, oats and barley, but today often also with wheat. A bread like this needs to be eaten straight out of the oven because when it cools and sits for a few hours it becomes heavy like a block of clay, as is the case with soda bread. While in the rest of Britain people became obsessed with large white loaves of bread, in the northern regions that depended on the hardier, low-gluten grains like oats and barley, a culture of soda bread and other quick breads or griddle cakes remained the custom.

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