Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Whole Wheat Irish Soda Bread

Originally, I had this recipe posted as an adapted version of a recipe from Cook's Illustrated. However, I am revising this recipe in favor of a simpler, wheatier version based on a recipe from 101 Cookbooks called "Irish Mum's Brown Bread". The only thing to note is that my bread required significantly more liquid, perhaps because I was using coarse wheat flour or thick buttermilk. In any case, follow your intuition about the right texture for the batter - it should be like a thick quick-bread.


Ingredients

3 c coarse-ground whole wheat flour
1 c white bread flour
1 t salt
4 T butter, melted
2-3 T honey (use more if you want your bread sweet)
2 c buttermilk
1 egg
extra warm water

Instructions

1) Heat the oven to 400 degrees and adjust a rack to the center position. Combine flours, salt, baking soda in a large mixing bowl.
2) Mix buttermilk and melted butter. Then add egg and honey.
3) Work the liquid into the flour mixture until the dough comes together in large clumps. Add extra water as needed until the dough is roughly the consistency of a thick brownie mix.
4) Pour the batter into a prepared pan (either a loaf tin or a pyrex dish) and bake for 50 minutes. Resist the urge to take the bread out early, even if it is browning on top, or else the middle of the bread will not be fully cooked.

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