Irish Brown Bread Recipe

By The Cooking World, Editorial Staff

October 1, 2021

Irish Brown Soda Bread with Stout and Treacle

In this week's We Cook Books recipe we travel to the green meadows of Ireland through a traditional Irish Brown Bread Recipe from The Irish Cookbook.

Soda Bread is one of the most recognized Irish recipes in the world. It is the bread people in Ireland are most familiar with.

PREP TIME

20 minutes

COOK TIME

1 hour 45 minutes

serves

2 loaves

Ingredients

Canola oil, for greasing
800 g (5 3/4 cups) strong brown (whole-wheat) bread flour
200 g (1 1/2 cups) strong white bread flour
1 tablespoon baking soda
20 g (4 teaspoons) sea salt
3 handfuls of (about 1 1/2 cups) mixed seeds (such as pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and linseeds/flaxseed)
200 g (2/3 cup) treacle (molasses)
2 eggs
850 g (3 1/2 cup) buttermilk
200 g (scant 1 cup) stout
59 g (1/3 cup) pinhead (steel-cut) oats, for the topping

Special Equipment

2 Loaf Pans
Large Bowl

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 130 ºC (265 ºF). Grease two 23 x 12 x 7-cm (9 x 5 x 3-inc) loaf pans.
Stir all the dry ingredients together in a large mixing bowl. Add the treacle (molasses), eggs and buttermilk and combine, then add enough stout until you achieve a wet dough.
Pour the dough into the two prepared loaf pans, sprinkle the oats and top and bake in the preheated oven for 1 four 30 to 1 hour 45 minutes, until the loaves sound hollow when the bottoms are tapped or the core temperature is greater than 85 ºC (185 ºF) on a meat thermometer.