I seem to be on a bit of an Irish kick at the moment.I guess I have not recovered from my trip to Dublin.
One of my favorite Irish foods is Brown Bread. “Brown Bread” in Ireland is just a baking soda quick bread in the same style as Irish Soda Bread. When making soda breads you want to minimize the mixing or kneading as you do not want to activate the glutens in the flour.
I have to give Heidi Swanson at 101 Cookbooks credit for most of the Brown Bread recipe although I did sprinkle oatmeal and wheat germ on top of the bread before baking it. My brother has worked for thirty years as a professional baker in a Dublin bakery where this is a extremely popular item may not be happy I did not ask him for a recipe.
- 3 Cups of Whole wheat Flour
- 1 cup all purpose flour with pinch of salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 3/4 Cups of Buttermilk
- 2os Butter (Kerrygold if Possible)
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon of Wheatgerm and 1 tablespoon of Oatmeal to top
Melt the butter and mix with milk and egg. Separately whisk together dry ingredients and then stir in dry ingredients. This can be cooked in a well buttered loaf tin or you can make it a little drier by gently kneading in a little more flour and shaping it into a circle. Slash an x on top. Bake at around 400F for 50 minutes or so.
This is great served warm with butter and preserves or with eggs for breakfast. I love it with smoked salmon.
And I made a very basic Rhubarb Jam from a recipe I found on Allrecipes.com.
I was reading Heidi’s discussion of Kerrygold butter and it reminded me how surprised I was when I moved to the US at how white the butter was. I had only ever seen golden yellow butter.
