Irish-Style Brown Bread

Name: Irish-Style Brown Bread
Prep time: 15 min
Total time: 50 min
Ingredients: 2.5 cups whole-wheat flour; 1.5 cups rye flour, such as Bob's Red Mill; 1.25 teaspoons baking soda; 1.5 teaspoons kosher salt; 2 cups buttermilk

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Martha Stewart Test Kitchen

Updated on March 20, 2020

irish style brown bread — Photo: Jonathan Lovekin

Prep Time:

15 mins

Total Time:

50 mins

Yield:

1 6-inch loaf

This humble Irish-Style Brown Bread, which gets a small update with the addition of rye flour, is similar to the one you would find every day on the traditional Irish table, served with butter and jam, smoked salmon, or stew. This recipe appears in our cookbook, "A New Way to Bake" (Clarkson Potter).

Ingredients

2 ½ cups whole-wheat flour
1 ½ cups rye flour, such as Bob's Red Mill
1 ¼ teaspoons baking soda
1 ½ teaspoons kosher salt
2 cups buttermilk

Directions

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. In a bowl, whisk together both flours, baking soda, and salt. Pour in buttermilk and stir until just combined, then knead in bowl two or three times, until all of flour has been incorporated and a shaggy dough forms.
Form dough into a 6-inch disk. Transfer to a parchment-lined baking sheet. With a sharp knife or bench scraper, cut into 6 wedges, leaving them in place.
Bake, rotating sheet halfway through, until bread is firm and sounds hollow when tapped on bottom, about 35 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack set over a baking sheet; let cool slightly. Serve warm or room temperature. (Bread is best the day it's made.)

Cook's Notes

In this recipe, the dough is cut into six wedges that are baked close together, so they form a loaf that's easy to pull apart. If you prefer to make the loaf easier to slice, don't cut through the dough -- just use a sharp knife to make shallow slashes before baking.

Originally appeared: Martha Stewart Living, March 2017