Balsamic Onion Soda Bread

For a year and a half I worked in a lovely little tearoom in the middle of nowhere, halfway up a glen. It was hard graft but, in many respects, my dream job. We got a good reputation, so summers were chaotic and we often worked 12-hour shifts, yet still, it seemed we couldn’t bake fast enough! But during the autumn and winter pace would change. We would pad about making big hearty soups, cakes and soda bread, stopping to speak to the regulars that had braved the weather to visit us. The owner, a good family friend, is from the Isle of Barra and so we would refer to this time of year as “island pace”. I was working with all my childhood friends and we did nothing but bake, blether and eat. Whenever I make soda bread now, I think back fondly to that wee café in the hills and of cooking, making coffee and looking out on to snowy mountains.