Recipes

Bread, Soda, Brown (Ballymaloe)

The everyday Irish loaf - what "brown bread" means in the Republic (in Ulster the sweeter equivalent is called "wheaten bread"). Note the egg and butter: this is a traditional recipe from the leading Irish cookery school and it contains both, which is why "egg and butter equals American" is flatly wrong.

Baked Goods · Breads · Irish

Bread, Soda, Brown (Ballymaloe)
Prep 10 min
Cook 40 min
Serves 1 loaf
Level Easy

The everyday Irish loaf - what “brown bread” means in the Republic (in Ulster the sweeter equivalent is called “wheaten bread”). Note the egg and butter: this is a traditional recipe from the leading Irish cookery school and it contains both, which is why “egg and butter equals American” is flatly wrong.

Ingredients

  • 225 g wholemeal flour, stone-ground preferred
  • 225 g plain white flour
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
  • 12-25 g butter, or 2 tbsp cream
  • 1 egg
  • 300-325 ml buttermilk or sour milk (whisk the egg in and top the combined liquid to 325-350 ml)

Directions

Key ingredients

Baking Soda & Baking Powder · Buttermilk

  1. Preheat the oven to 230 C / 450 F / Gas 8.
  2. Mix the flours, salt and bicarbonate of soda. Rub in the diced butter to a breadcrumb texture.
  3. Whisk the egg into the buttermilk as ONE liquid measure.
  4. Make a well, pour the liquid in all at once, and mix with the same one-handed circular movement. Soft but not sticky. Do not overmix.
  5. Shape into a round about 5 cm thick. Deep cross, prick the four corners.
  6. Bake 10 minutes at 230 C / 450 F, then 25 minutes at 200 C / 400 F, then FLIP THE LOAF OVER for 5-10 minutes to guarantee the base is cooked.
  7. Tap the base - hollow. Cool on a wire rack.

Notes

The modern-buttermilk trap

Ballymaloe notes that for lower-fat supermarket buttermilk, “the butter and cream are essential additions.” The cultured stuff in the carton is NOT the fatty, live churn by-product the tradition assumed. THE BUTTER IS FAT BEING ADDED BACK IN. Worth knowing before you decide the enriched version is inauthentic - it is compensating for an ingredient that changed underneath the recipe.

Buttermilk quantity - a real cook’s note

Two Ballymaloe sources give 300-325 ml and 400-425 ml for the SAME flour weight. That is not a contradiction to paper over; it is the truth about this bread. Buttermilk quantity genuinely varies with flour absorbency and buttermilk thickness. Learn the target - soft, not sticky - and ignore the number.

Brown was the everyday bread

Darina Allen recalls WHITE soda bread as a childhood treat for special occasions, because white flour cost more than brown. The modern assumption (brown = artisan/premium) is inverted relative to the tradition. The wholemeal loaf wasn’t a health choice - it was what you could afford.

Flour note for Americans

“Irish-style wholemeal flour” is a real, distinct product - coarse, stone-ground, genuinely different from US whole wheat. American whole wheat gives a tighter, tamer loaf. It’ll be fine. It won’t be the same.

See Bread, Soda, White (Ballymaloe).