Just me who will now use 'what's your favourite kind of bread?' as their go-to awkward silence breaker?
Well, I will now.
In case no one looked it up, soda bread is made with baking soda, and is essentially unleavened.
The baking soda is the leavening agent: it interacts with a mild acid in the dough (lactic acid in buttermilk perhaps) to form bubbles that leaven the bread. It's the same process as with pancake batter.
Tip: instead of buying self-raising flour or baking powder, you can buy baking soda and cream of tartar. Use two parts cream of tartar to one part baking soda in place of baking powder in your recipe. If the recipe calls for 1 teaspoon of baking powder, for example, use half a teaspoon of cream of tartar and a quarter teaspoon of baking soda. This will emulate baking powder, which normally also contains one quarter rice flour or something similar.
Why bother? Unless you're using it frequently, baking powder will tend to lose its potency over time. This also allows you to omit the cream of tartar if you want, in the case where there is already acid in the mix (e.g. buttermilk).
To make self-raising flour, make two teaspoons of baking powder per cup of plain/all-purpose flour (1 tsp cream of tartar + 1/2 tsp baking soda).
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