Recipe Irish Wheaten Bread

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This recipe contains Irish soda flour which is

..neither wholemeal nor white, large pieces of rolled whole wheat and bran give the flour a beautiful flecked appearance.

It gives a nutty flavour to the bread which is something unique and typically Irish. If you can't get hold of it, you can just use plain flour but be aware, you won't get quite the same tasting bread.

It is possible to purchase soda bread from Waitrose and various online shops such as Shipton Mill.... or you could just settle for visiting Ireland - something I can wholeheartedly recommend . I have had this recipe for a very long time from an old magazine which sadly does not have any names on it any more.

One thing I love about making bread with buttermilk is that you don't need to prove the loaf at all.

Irish Wheaten Bread

Ingredients
175g/6oz soda flour
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
375g/12oz wholemeal flour
1-2 tsp brown sugar
400-475ml buttermilk
a pinch of salt to taste

Method

• Preheat the oven to 200C, 400F, Gas Mark 6
• Sift the soda flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt into a bowl and mix in the wholemeal flour and sugar
• Make a well in the middle and add around 3/4 of the buttermilk stirring with hands or a wooden spoon to form a loose dough. Add extra buttermilk as needed.
• Grease a 2lb loaf tin (typically butter would be used to grease the tin) and turn the dough into the tin. Leave the top rough and sprinkle with a touch of wholemeal flour for the authentic taste!
• Stand the tin on a baking sheet and place in the oven for 30 minutes.
• Decrease the temperature of the oven to 150C, 300F or Gas Mark 2 (this is essential) and cook for another 30 minutes until the loaf is well risen, brown and crusty on top.

As with all loaves, if you remove it from the tin and tap the underneath it should sound hollow but another check with this type of loaf is the standard cake check - insert a skewer and if it comes out clean, it is cooked.

• When cooked, removed from the tin, wrap in a clean tea-towel or cloth and allow to cool completely on a wire rack.

 

[Berties]

i love these types of bread,another great one is Guinness bread ,we had it first while staying in Dublin,for breakfast
http://www.guinness-storehouse.com/en/cooking_guinness_bread.aspx