This little number is scheduled for breakfast on the morning of Christmas Eve. Straight from the oven, it’s fabulous on it’s own or with a festively unhealthy slathering of fridge-cold butter. The lovely Christmas fruit and spices work wonderfully in this sweet bread that is ridiculously easy to make.

What you need…

1 x baking tray, dusted with flour

350g plain flour

½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

25g golden caster sugar

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon mixed spice

1 teaspoon cinnamon powder

30g pitted dates, chopped

30g dried cranberries

30g sultanas

30g raisins

30g pecans/walnuts, chopped

300ml buttermilk

½ tablespoon vanilla bean paste

A sprinkling of candied peel

A sprinkling of demerara sugar

A sprinkling of icing sugar, for decoration

What to do…

Preheat your oven to 200˚c / 400˚f / gas 6.

In a large bowl, thoroughly stir together the flour, bicarbonate of soda, sugar, salt, spices and fruit.

Mix the vanilla paste into the buttermilk and then pour the whole lot into the dry ingredients. Use a spatula to bring the ingredients together to create a dough.

Tip the dough out into the centre of your baking tray and use floured hands to roughly flatten it out a bit into a circle. Use your spatula to cut the dough into even slices, making sure you cut all the way through (the number of slices is up to you).

Sprinkle with candied peel and demerara sugar and pop into the oven for 30 minutes.

Remove from the oven and leave the bread on the baking tray for 10 minutes before sprinkling with icing sugar. Pop your Christmas soda bread onto a festive plate and put in the middle of the table for much tearing and sharing!

Tip…

If you can’t get buttermilk, mix full fat milk with 3 tablespoons lemon juice instead.

Inspired by…

I watched Nadiya Hussain make a chocolate soda bread recently and substituted the chocolatey ingredients for Christmassy ones – had to make a couple before I got the recipe just right but we persevered (tough job – someone had to do it!!!!)

How easy…

Dead easy and really quick. For a bread it requires very little attention.