Irish Soda Bread

Before I post the recipe itself, I want to tell you about what makes it special and why my kids love it so much. My recipe requires using live coals. The bread dough is placed in a "dutch oven" style pot with a concave lid. I then scoop hot coals--from a fire that I've burned down--onto the concave lid. I then place the pot into a regular oven. This ensures that the soda bread cooks evenly on the bottom (from the oven) and on the top (from the coals).

1.) Place a pound and a half (5 cups) of good wheaten meal (flour) into a large bowl; 2.) mix in two teaspoonfuls of finery-powered salt; 3.) dissolve a large teaspoonful of super carbonate of soda (baking soda) in a half a teacupful of cold water and add it to the meal and salt; 3.) rub up all intimately; 4.) pour into the bowl as much very sour buttermilk as will make the whole into soft dough (it should be as soft as could possibly be handled, and the softer the better); 5.) form it into a cake of about an inch thickness; 6.) put into a flat Dutch oven or frying pan, with some metallic cover, such as an oven lid or griddle; 7.) apply a moderate heat underneath for twenty minutes then layer evenly some clear live coals upon the lid; 8.) keep it so for half an hour (the heat underneath being allowed to fall off gradually for the last fifteen minutes), taking off the cover occasionally to see that it does not burn