My culinary inspirations often spring from the most delightful place: the Google Cambridge office’s teaching kitchen. Ever since I started attending their incredible onsite cooking and baking classes, I’ve been on a mission to recreate their magic at home, usually in my signature mini-batch style.
This particular recipe was originally a whole two-loaf affair, but my eyes immediately zeroed in on one crucial detail: no eggs. This is gold for those lazy weekend mornings when you’re suddenly in desperate need of a quick carb side for lunch. And trust me, that happens a lot in my house.
So, I did a quarter of the original recipe. The Google chefs had made theirs with cheddar and scallions (yum!), but, as fate would have it, we had none of those on hand. Instead, we improvised with mozzarella and some frozen (convenience, am I right?) spinach – still a pretty tasty combo!
Instead of a mini loaf, which would demand a longer baking time, I opted for buns. Austen, ever the hands-on helper, insisted on rolling hers into a perfect little ball, so one bun is adorably misshapen (I just sliced the others with a food scraper, which worked beautifully too).
And because “who ever has buttermilk on hand?”, I used my trusty vegan buttermilk technique: just mix some vinegar or lemon juice into any milk and let it sit for a few minutes. Simple!
The result? Crunchy on the outside, soft and pillowy on the inside, cheesy, flavorful bread buns ready in just 15 minutes of oven time. We devoured them and never looked back, because these kinds of things are never as good as they are fresh off the oven anyway. It was a total mini-batch victory, and I even sent photos to the test kitchen chef, making them all proud!
I hope you try this easy recipe and let me know what you think!
Mini-batch Soda Bread Buns
Equipment
- Cookie sheet or similar baking pan
Ingredients
Dry ingredients
- 3/4 cup flour (90 g) gf all purpose if desired
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 cup shredded (plant) cheese (28 g) sub whatever other mix-ins you desire
- 1/4 cup chopped spinach/scallions etc. (about 15 g) sub whatever other mix-ins you desire
Buttermilk ingredients
- 1/3 cup (plant) milk (80 g) I used fat-free ultra filtered milk because that's what I had on hand. If your milk / plant milk is fatty you could omit the oil in the buttermilk mixture.
- 1 tsp vinegar or lemon juice I used apple cider vinegar
- 1 tsp any oil (5 g) I used olive oil
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400F and line a cookie sheet etc with parchment.
- In a measuring cup, whisk together milk, vinegar and oil to make a rich buttermilk. Let this sit for 5 minutes.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, cheese and spinach until coarsely combined.
- Add enough buttermilk to combine everything into a shaggy dough, it should not be too wet – you probably won't need all of the buttermilk.
- Knead the dough very lightly on a lightly floured surface 3-4 times. DO NOT OVERMIX or your bread will be tough and hard. Cut into 4 and (optional) shape each piece into a round.
- Brush the tops with remaining buttermilk (we also sprinkled some everything but the bagel seasoning).
- Bake for 15-17 minutes until golden and enjoy!
Notes
- You can also make a small loaf out of this, baking time will be slightly longer (I would start checking at the 20 min mark).