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A loaf of Irish brown bread with a few slices cut. It sits on a stripe tea towel alongside a small knife and pot of honey.

Irish Brown Bread

5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Star 5 from 2 reviews
  • Author: Emma Lee
  • Prep Time: 10 minutes
  • Cook Time: 35 minutes
  • Total Time: 45 minutes
  • Yield: 1 loaf 1x
  • Category: Side Dish
  • Method: Baking
  • Cuisine: Irish

Description

This Irish Brown bread recipe has me thinking about blistery coastal days perched by a fire, a pot of seafood chowder, & brown bread smothered with butter. 


Ingredients

Scale
  • 250g plain flour
  • 200g coarse wholemeal flour
  • 2 tsp sea salt flakes
  • 1 tsp bicarbonate soda
  • 1 tbsp runny honey
  •  
  • 400ml buttermilk

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees celcius. Grease a loaf pan and pop aside.
  2. In a large bowl, combine all the dry ingredients. Using a whisk, give them a god mix to break up any lumps and aerate the ingredients.
  3. In a measuring cup / jug, combine the buttermilk and honey. Using a fork, give it a quick mix.
  4. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add  the wet ingredients to the bowl. Using a wooden spoon or spatula, mix all the ingredients together until they are just combined, but no more. It should be a wet and sticky dough, unlike a tradtional bread dough.
  5. Place the dough into the greased loaf pan. Using a spoon dunked in water, smooth out the top of the loaf. With a sharp knife, make a cut on the top of the dough down the center of the loaf. 
  6. Pop the loaf into the preheated oven and bake for 35 minutes or until cooked through and golden on top.
  7. Remove the dough from the loaf pan and turn out onto a wire rack to let the bread cool. You can tell when a loaf of fresh bread is cooked when you tap on the base and get a hollow sound.

Notes

I don’t line my bread tins for bread making. If you have a good quality, non-stick loaf pan I have never found that I need to line them with parchment paper when making bread loaves.

If you would prefer a freeform loaf as opposed to a bread tin-shaped loaf, here’s how. Firstly, you need to reduce the amount of liquid ingredients as this recipe is meant for a bread tin. Use 360ml of buttermilk instead of 400ml. Check out this traditional Irish soda bread recipe on how to make a freeform loaf. Follow from step 4, to mix your dough and then turn it onto a floured surface, shaping, scoring, and then popping it in a Dutch oven and baking.

Nutrition

  • Serving Size:
  • Calories: 239
  • Sugar: 4.9 g
  • Sodium: 794.3 mg
  • Fat: 2.6 g
  • Carbohydrates: 46.5 g
  • Protein: 8.2 g
  • Cholesterol: 5.7 mg