This traditional Irish brown soda bread is perfect alongside a hearty lamb stew, and smells wonderful while it’s baking. You can find wheat bran in the baking aisle (Bob’s Red Mill is reliably good), but you may have to make a trip to the healthy/natural foods section to find wheat germ depending on your supermarket’s layout. Toast the wheat bran and wheat germ together in a small skillet over medium to medium high heat for a few minutes until just aromatic (there should be a nutty, toasty smell rising up from the skillet- stir the bran and germ every so often for even toasting and to prevent burning).
Ingredients:
- 1¾ cup all purpose flour
- 1¾ cup whole wheat flour
- 3 tablespoons toasted wheat bran
- 3 tablespoons toasted wheat germ
- 2 tablespoons old-fashioned oats
- 2 tablespoons (packed) dark brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons. (¼ stick) chilled unsalted butter, cut into pieces
- 2 cup (about) buttermilk
Method:
Preheat oven to 425° F. Butter 9x5x3-inch loaf pan. Combine first 8 ingredients in large bowl; mix well. Add butter; rub in with fingertips until mixture resembles fine meal. Stir in enough buttermilk to form soft dough. Transfer dough to prepared loaf pan. Bake until bread is dark brown and tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 40 minutes. Turn bread out onto rack. Turn right side up and cool on rack.
Serves 8.