How to make Irish brown bread

This simple, five-ingredient brown bread recipe is the essence of Irish comfort food. My grandmother churned out these loaves almost daily, expertly getting them from bowl to oven in mere minutes. 

There were sometimes variations - an egg to bring it together or a knob of butter for extra richness - but the core ingredients were always the same: white flour, brown flour, baking soda and buttermilk. She would take turns teaching each of her grandchildren how to make it, dunking our unwilling hands right into the gooey mixture.

The key to this bread is mixing the dough with your hands. It might feel a bit strange at first, but ditching the spoon makes it much easier to combine the ingredients and judge the consistency. It might be disconcerting at first, but what's more authentic than putting the electric mixture to one side and getting back to tradition?

A note on flour: This recipe only works with Irish wholemeal flour, which is coarse and contains pieces of bran and wheat germ, which give brown bread its signature texture. You can find it in most Irish shops in the US and in some larger supermarkets.

Ingredients:

• 3 cups plain white flour (or cream flour, if you're in Ireland)

• 2 cups wholemeal brown flour (I use Odlum's)

• 1 tsp of baking soda

• 1 ½ cups buttermilk

• 2 tbsp sugar

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to  400°F (200°C) and lightly flour a baking tray.

2. In a large mixing bowl, combine the flours, baking soda, and sugar.

3. Slowly pour in just enough buttermilk to wet the dough, you might not need all of it. Start with a cup and give the dough a mix with your hands before adding more. The mixture should just about come together into a rough, shaggy ball. If it’s too dry, slowly pour in more buttermilk. If it’s too wet add in more white flour. 

4. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and gently knead a few times until it's shaped into a round. With a sharp knife, cut a cross into the top to help the bread cook evenly. 

5. Bake for about 20 to 25 minutes, until the top is golden brown. When it looks ready, flip the loaf upside down and return to the oven for another 10 minutes or so. The bread should have a crisp crust and sound hollow when tapped on the bottom when it’s ready.

6. Cool on a wire rack and enjoy with a generous slather of Kerrygold butter and raspberry jam. 

   
   

Tip: If you don't have buttermilk on hand, stir a tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar into a cup of normal milk and let it sit for five minutes.