Black treacle & oat soda bread with pickled cucumbers, smoked salmon & homemade butter

Method

• step 1

  Heat oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6 and put a baking sheet on the middle shelf. Mix the dry ingredients for the bread with 1 tsp salt. In a jug, mix together the buttermilk and treacle, and add enough water to make up the liquid to 300ml. Mix the wet and dry ingredients together to make a soft dough. If it’s very sticky, flour your hands and shape into a round (it doesn’t need to be neat). Remove the hot tray from the oven, dust with flour and put the bread on it, squashing it down a little. Use a knife to cut deep indentations in the dough, crossing in the middle to create six triangular pieces. Put in the oven and bake for 20 mins.

• step 2

  Meanwhile, combine all of the ingredients for the pickle with ½ tsp salt and set aside.

• step 3

  To make the butter, tip the cream into a bowl and beat with an electric hand whisk for 5 mins until it collapses and splits into butterfat and buttermilk. Keep going until the butterfat starts to clump together, then drain into a sieve over a bowl. Squeeze as much liquid from the butterfat as possible, wrap it in baking parchment and chill until you’re ready to serve. Save the buttermilk for another recipe (or if you have more time, make the butter first, then use the buttermilk to make the bread). To serve, unwrap the butter and sprinkle it with sea salt. Serve with the bread, pickled cucumbers, salmon and lemon.