Dairy free Soda Bread, butter and Autumn sunshine at River Cottage

 A few months back I won a raffle for a place at a Foodies Blog Camp at River Cottage. We organised accommodation, M arranged leave and I wrote it on the calendar. All of a sudden (or so it seemed) this week dawned, blue skies full of early autumn sunshine, the leaves just beginning to turn and the air suddenly developing a crispness. Unmistakably autumnal.

River Cottage is beautiful at every time of year, but this week it seemed to have truly embraced the turning seasons. Golden raspberry canes spiked with the pretty fruit, pears ripening against the kitchen garden walls and the last sweetcorn husks awaiting hungry bloggers.

I left Harry and M ready for a Daddy-son day, full of soft play and sandcastles. As only the second time I've left Harry for any length of time, to say I was nervous is probably an understatement. I waved, blew kisses and sent love before steeling myself to clamber up the tractor steps for the rocky ride down to the farm. I had a lot of hope pinned on a lot of coffee (someone who shall remain nameless was awake at 4am).

After a much needed coffee (or two) our day began with bread and butter making.  Butter making wasn't new to me - I've used it for a few years now as an activity for Guides and Brownies - they love to see their cream, shaken in a jam jar begin to change, and are so proud when everyone has it on their muffins at tea time. I knew M would love some homemade butter, so got on with whisking like my arms depended on it, before squeezing out the buttermilk, rinsing and adding a little salt and thyme.

Everyone else used their buttermilk as the liquid in their soda bread - however, obviously we needed to keep my bread dairy free as I had every intention of Harry and I tucking in later. Apple juice was to be my liquid, and paired beautifully with the apples, foraged blackberries, thyme and sage in my loaf. I love soda bread and although we weren't given quantities, this is what I would use if I were to recreate it at home:

Autumn stuffed soda bread - dairy free
Serves 8

300g malted grain bread flour
200ml cider/ apple juice
1 dsp baking powder
1 tsp sea salt
1 mug of foraged blackberries
1 eating apple, cored and chopped
1 sprig of thyme, leaves picked
3-4 sage leaves, rolled and sliced

Preheat your oven as hot as it will go
Lightly mix the flour, baking powder, salt, blackberries, apple, thyme and sage together before pouring in the cider/ apple juice and gently bringing the dough together
You don't need to knead soda bread dough so once the mixture is sticking together, simply shape it into a round before using the back of a knife to score the dough into 4 sections
Slide the loaf onto a greased baking sheet or preheated pizza stone
Heavily dust the dough with some more flour
Bake for 20 minutes

Allow to cool before enjoying as it is, or spread, liberally with some really good honey.

Still to come, some thoughts on the photography class and some of the pictures I took with M's DSLR - we think Harry has posted my point and shoot camera somewhere 'safe'