Irish Brown Bread Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Is Irish brown bread the same as Irish soda bread? ›

If you really want to get technical, brown bread is a form of soda bread since it uses baking soda as the leavening agent. However, the two loaves differ pretty significantly from there. Irish brown bread has a deep, nutty flavor because of its wheat flour and wheat bran while soda bread uses only white flour.

Most recipes sub out 1 cup of the Irish-style whole wheat flour for all-purpose flour for Irish Brown Bread. However, I wanted a bread that could be made fairly quickly – without any special ingredients so I decided to give it a try with “regular” American whole wheat flour. I love it!

Make sure you are using the correct amount of baking soda in the recipe. Too much or too little can result in a crumbly loaf. It's also possible that your oven wasn't hot enough when you baked the bread. Make sure to preheat your oven before baking Irish soda bread and don't open it frequently during the baking time.

Most Irishmen and women eat Irish brown bread for breakfast or lunch. It's best served simple, with a pad of Kerrygold butter or used as a dunker with soup.

Ireland, for one, has embraced it's kind of bread – the soda bread. It is a basic staple among the Irish that they call it Irish Soda Bread. It's common to see the locals pair this famous bread with a bottle of Guinness too.

The reason why whole wheat loaves end up so dense is because whole wheat flour has very little gluten as compared to white all-purpose flour. Gluten is important for giving the dough – and final loaves – structure. Without it, loaves tend to end up flat and dense.

Our Irish-style flour, also known as Irish wholemeal, is a US-grown, bran-flecked, soft whole wheat flour, perfect for traditional Irish baked goods (and much, much more). Similar to whole wheat pastry flour, Irish wholemeal contains all of the bran, endosperm, and germ of the wheat berry.

Bisquick makes a great breading mix. Simply season it with salt and pepper and use it wherever you'd use flour or other breadings to coat foods before frying for a crispy, tasty crust. Try this recipe for Easy Tasty Fried Chicken or this oven-baked fried chicken.

If the dough doesn't fill out with gas, perhaps because it hasn't had time to rise properly, the inside of the loaf will remain soggy and dense as the dough won't bake properly. You should therefore leave plenty of time for your dough to rise.

Why is my Irish soda bread gummy? ›

And finally, don't immediately cut into the Fast Irish Soda bread when you pull it out of the oven. Although this bread is best served warm, cutting into it too quickly will turn the bread gummy.

Soda bread gets its name from baking soda, which, added in the right amount, creates levity without the use and wait of yeast. (Some recipes call for yeast and kneading, but know this isn't required.) You don't have to wait hours or overnight for a rise, either.

Irish Stew is a thick, hearty dish of mutton, potatoes, and onions and undisputedly the national dish of Ireland.

Irish soda bread has a couple of other names, too: When we attended a class at the famous Ballymaloe Cookery School in County Cork, Ireland, they made this loaf and called it a Spotted Dog. It's also called white soda bread, American Irish soda bread, or fruit soda bread.

Contrary to a common misconceptions, the Irish did not import the Soda Bread recipe from the American Indians. This misconception is my fault because 30+ years ago on the original site I happened to mention Native Americans using Potash to make bread.

In Ireland, brown bread is as common as a pint of Guinness. Most versions are made with Irish beer, too! The bread became popular many years ago due, in part, to the low cost of wheat flour. Back then, white flour was more expensive.

The main difference between sourdough bread and soda bread is in its leavening agent – sourdough bread rises due to the gasses released from yeast and bacteria fermentation, while soda bread rises from the gasses produced during the chemical interaction between baking soda and acids in the dough.