With no yeast or kneading required, the recipes for Irish Soda Bread and Love Me Tender Buttermilk-Cream Cheese Biscuits make it possible to enjoy fresh-from-the oven breads and biscuits just about any time you desire. Containing buttermilk and baking soda, Irish Soda Bread gets its lift and rise from the reaction generated between the two, as bubbles of carbon dioxide expand via the heat of the oven. The finished soda bread will have a crisp crust and a hearty crumb. Also made with buttermilk and baking soda, soft and fluffy Love Me Tender Buttermilk-Cream Cheese Biscuits gains substantial height after just 18 minutes of bake time. To ensure success, be sure your baking soda isn’t past its prime. (If your supply has been sitting around for a while, say more than a year, test it by dropping a few of drops of vinegar onto a bit of baking soda. If it fizzles like mad, your soda is good.) In addition, the kind of flour used in a recipe is important, too. I like White Lily Self-Rising Flour for biscuits and for Irish Soda Bread, King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour has always been my flour of choice. King Arthur Flour also makes available many other items helpful to bread bakers, a few of which are highlighted here. With baking being part science, part skill and part art, having the right ingredients and tools also makes it fun.

Sue Ade is a syndicated food writer with broad experience and interest in the culinary arts. She has worked and resided in the Lowcountry of South Carolina since 1985 and may be reached at kitchenade@yahoo.com.