Gluten-free cheese and spring onion soda bread

Comforting, tender, gluten-free soda bread, studded with strong cheddar cheese, green spring onion tops and onion-like chives. I hope you love this one as much as I do!

Baking gluten free bread at home can be so rewarding but it can also be time consuming, use a lot of ingredients and more often than not, call for a sourdough starter. This recipe for soda bread however, couldn’t be simpler. On the table in less than an hour, it comes together so quickly and is extra satisfying slathered in salty butter.

My gluten free baking tips & tricks

Oats add texture to this gluten free soda bread and prevent it from getting any kind of dusty texture, which can be a problem of gluten free flours – likewise the simple addition of just half a teaspoon of sugar helps not only to balance out the flavour but encourage the loaf to brown (something gluten free flours don’t do as well as gluten-full flours).

Leiths Cooking School add butter to their soda bread dough, as you would when making scones and trying it for this recipe, it really helped make the loaf more tender. I’ve used it in my soda bread recipes ever since. The addition of egg yolk also adds colour, richness and binding ability.

Being gluten free, this loaf was never going to rise as much as a gluten-full soda bread, so instead of trying to emulate that puffed-up, cracked look, I took inspiration from Russell Brown who presses his dough into a flatter disc from the beginning. Using a knife to slice the dough into 8 pieces rather than using a wooden spoon to press the dough into four pieces, helped with the gentle rise and final look. Last but not least, I reduced the temperature of the oven after 20 minutes, once the beautiful golden exterior is achieved, to allow the dough to cook through without burning.