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Irish Mum's Brown Bread Recipe
March 16, 2005 | by Heidi | Filed under Baked Goods Recipes, Side Dish Recipes, Vegetarian Recipes, Whole Grain Recipes
My friend Ross, who is from Ireland
I was in an Irish pub sometime last year, and alongside my Guinness I was served a plate of warm, hearty, substantial Irish soda bread with a generous slab of salty butter on the side. Talk about hitting the spot.
At one of our recent collective cooking nights I was telling my friend Ross (who is Irish - accent and everything) about my delicious bread experience. His face lit up and he told me about a brown soda bread his mom (mum) would make for him growing up, and how much he loved it. He then went on waxing poetic for another five minutes or so about making sure I served it with Kerrygold butter if I wanted a real treat. Ross loves Kerrygold...a lot.
I was sold, and of course hit Ross up for the recipe.
Let's start off talking about how easy this bread is to make. If you are intimidated by the prospect of baking bread at home, this is the recipe for you. It is technically a quick bread, and comes together with no scary yeast - using only baking soda as a leavening agent. Bake a few loaves of this to build up your confidence before moving on to try yeast based breads and doughs.
I went from zero to the fully baked loaf you see above in an hour flat. So, this is a bread recipe for people who can't stand the thought of planning ahead - or bread makers with a penchant for instant gratification.
I tracked down the aforementioned Kerrygold butter at Trader Joe's, and brought it home. It tastes saltier than most salted American butters, and its color is a much deeper yellow. I love salty butter (well to be honest, I just really like salt in general) and couldn't wait to slather some of the Kerrygold on some fresh baked, crusty soda bread.
The following recipe is for a version of Ross' Mum's bread that is baked in a tin. You can also scale back a bit on the buttermilk, knead the bread a touch, and shape the dough into a round that you can bake freeform - she cuts a cross in the top of the free form mold before baking - I haven't tried it this way yet. I baked in a standard loaf pan, but you can bake in whatever size loaf pan you want ( a couple smaller loaves), just fill tins with the dough to roughly 3/4 full. As you can tell from the picture above I filled the pan just a shade too full, but I wanted to use up all the dough.
I love this bread, it isn't yeasty or super bready in texture like a yeast leavened bread, but it has its own personality - dense, hearty, crusty yet still moist. It would be delicious with a bowl of hot, hearty soup, as the base for a roasted vegetable sandwich, or simply warm with a nice slathering of salty butter. Thanks to Ross and his mom for the perfect recipe to sample alongside a St. Patrick's Day beer.
Irish Mum's Brown Bread Recipe
3 cups whole wheat bread flour (Ross says: this is best when the flour is coarse as opposed to the whole wheat flour you get here which is fully milled. Heidi says: I used a standard whole wheat bread flour which seemed to be pretty finely milled, because that's all I could find, even at Rainbow Foods.)
1 cup unbleached white bread flour (Heidi: I used King Arthur brand)
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 3/4+ cups buttermilk
2 ounces butter (preferably Kerrygold)
1 egg
Melt the butter over gentle heat.
In a medium-sized bowl lightly beat the egg and then gradually add the buttermilk all the while stirring to incorporate the egg. Beat in the butter.
In another bowl sift and mix the dry ingredients as best you can (not really a prob if you can't find the coarse flour), and then stir in the buttermilk mixture. If you are using a baking tin the mixture should be on the wetter side - (heidi: like a thick brownie mix, something you could pour into the tin, not scoopable by hand really). If your dough is too dry, mix in small splashes of buttermilk until it is the right consistency.
Cook at 400F for 50 minutes on the middle rack. You want to hear a sort of hollow sound when you knock on the bottom of the tin. Resist the urge to take the bread out too soon, or the middle of the bread won't get cooked through.
Makes 1 loaf.
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Your Comments
Ana said:Looks scrumptious Heidi. I'll try it this weekend. If it is as good as your heather honey ice-cream (Jan 27) it will be a killer to my fast disapearing waistline.
Heidi - Here is a funny thing. English butter is three times and salty and three times as yellow as Kerrygold. My Irish brother-in-law refuses Brit butter when he visits my parents in England. My mum has to get in a pack of the mild, pale butter just for him. Yes, strange but true, us English think of Kerrygold as pale and not salty enough. I am off to the UK next week, 'll try and take a photo of the really yellow, really salty stuff if I can. Even if I don;t manage to snap it, I can assure you i'll be eating some of it!
You'd enjoy a wonderfully illustrated single-recipe book by the late Bay Area artist Veronica di Rosa called Good News Brown Bread. It is long out of print,. A completely delightful tiny paperbound book, it is focused on a recipe for a quick, brown bread Veronica recalled from her Canadian Irish upbringing and served to her children here as they were growing up.
Graham flour is the coarse-milled stuff that really makes this bread its best. The bread doesn't hold together quite as well, but this bread doesn't anyway.
Ross's Mum said:An cousin living in San Fran who tasted the bread in Ireland tried to make it with Americian flour. She said it was not the same and always requested Ross's grandmother to bring flour from Ireland on her visits to San Fran.
Have a Happy St. Patrick's Day. "Go Mbeimid beo ag an am seo aris"
what is strong flour?
Ditto Patti's question.
A soft flour for example would be a cake flour - fine powdery, baby soft.... Strong white flour is produced from wheats with a higher protein content. Look for a white bread flour for this recipe...(I'll update the recipe) .Maybe there is a thread on eGullet about it. I have to run to dinner, but I will look for more info later.
I used King Arthur Unbleached Bread Flour for the "strong white flour" called for in this recipe. http://www.kingarthurflour.com/flour/home.php
-h
Hey Heidi
I'll be spending just one day in Dublin next week.
let me know if you want me to try get you any special kind of particular flour
-Sam
Sam, You are the only person I know who is nice enough to offer to lug home heavy sacks of flour for me from international destinations.
Maybe there is an Irish grocer somewhere here in the bay area that imports? I'll have to look around to save you the weight in your luggage :)
-h
Wow That was real good...and my wife said it was so easy to make...she's the baker of the house
That looks fantastic, Heidi! Thank you so much for sharing it. Have a super weekend!
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