Fig and walnut soda bread with fennel seed butter

Slather the butter liberally, please and thank you

This knobbly loaf comes together in all of about two minutes before going into the oven. Sorry to be bossy but to enjoy this at its best it really should be eaten straight from the oven with liberal slicks of butter (and I mean liberal). After that, it’s best to toast it or freeze slices.

400g white spelt flour
50g oats
1 tsp salt
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
120g dried figs
80g walnuts
500g natural yoghurt

100g salted butter, at room temperature
1½ tsp fennel seeds

Preheat the oven to 200°C and line a baking tray with parchment paper. Roughly chop the dried figs and walnuts, keeping both chunky so that you get more texture and visible pieces in the finished loaf. 

In a large bowl, mix the flour, oats, salt and bicarb well so that everything is evenly distributed. Stir through the figs and walnuts then stir in the yoghurt. 

Working as swiftly as possible, shape roughly into a round loaf, transfer to the lined tray and use a bench scraper or sharp knife to score a cross on the top. Bake for 40 minutes until deeply golden and hollow sounding when tapped on the base.  

As the loaf bakes, whip the butter in a small bowl using a whisk or paddling with a spatula until very soft and light. Toast the fennel seeds in a small dry frying pan for about 2 minutes until fragrant. Sprinkle the toasted fennel seeds over the butter.

Serve the soda bread warm from the oven with lots of butter.