Adapted from Paul Hollywood's soda bread, which calls for half whole wheat and half white flour and he weighs his ingredients. I start with four cups of flour and then pay attention to the look and feel of the dough for how much buttermilk actually goes in.
4 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups buttermilk
Heat oven to 375 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment.
Combine flour, salt, and soda in a large bowl. Make a well in the flour, pour in half the buttermilk, and stir the flour into the buttermilk with your fingers. Add more buttermilk until all the flour is absorbed into a sticky dough.
Turn out the dough onto a well-floured surface, knead lightly, and shape into a ball. Cut the ball into quarters with a large knife and push the quarters back together. Dust the top of the loaf with flour.
Bake the loaf for 40 minutes until golden brown and hollow-sounding. Cool on a wire rack.
Break the loaf into quarters. Slice up one quarter to eat right away, obviously. Wrap each remaining quarter in foil and freeze. Then when you feel like a bit of toast, thaw a quarter at a time, slice and toast it up.
