An easy Irish brown bread recipe that has a soft and tender inside with a crunchy crust! This simple, quick bread recipe tastes nutty and slightly sweet from the whole wheat flour.

Sliced Irish brown bread laid out on a cutting board.

This hearty bread is easy to pull together, perfectly soft, with a tight crumb and a crunchy crust! Wheat bran and whole wheat flour give Irish brown bread its dark brown color. It is the perfect bread to serve with my roasted summer vegetable soup, shallot jam, or just toasted with butter! 

This bread is a perfect way to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day alongside a rich lamb stew, a pour of Irish whiskey, and a slice of Guinness chocolate cake. However, I make this Irish brown soda bread (and beer bread!) all year long just like they do in Ireland!

Why You Will Love This Irish Brown Bread

  • Perfectly tight crumb with a tender flaky crust. The butter and sugar helps create the flaky crust and keeps the bread soft for five days at room temperature. Using whole wheat flour also creates a tighter crumb structure, like in my whole wheat sourdough
  • Easy to pull together. Irish brown bread is a quick bread, meaning no yeast! This bread comes together in 5 minutes, and you can even make it by hand
  • Delicious, hearty bread! This Irish brown bread is the perfect bread to have around for dinner, afternoon tea, or breakfast! Serve with butter and jam or a delicious hearty chicken noodle soup!
The completed Irish brown bread in its whole round form.

Professional Tips for Making Irish Brown Bread

  • Don’t overmix the bread. The key to tender, quick bread is not overmixing. When adding the buttermilk, it is best to mix it together by hand. Working with whole wheat flour and buttermilk means they need more time to hydrate. If you mix them together with a paddle in the stand mixer, it will most likely result in tough Irish brown bread.
  • Make sure to cut the loaf with a crisscross half an inch deep. Scoring the loaf is a very important step, like in my sourdough recipes. It helps the steam escape and gives the bread a more controlled rise. 
  • Don’t miss out on the wheat bran. If you don’t have Irish-style whole wheat flour, I suggest you find the wheat bran. Your bread will have a richer flavor and a coarse, traditional texture. 
  • Cut in cold butter. Whenever you use the cut-in method of mixing, you need cold butter. It will create a tender, melt-in-your-mouth texture. It also coats the gluten strands, shortening them and helping keep the bread tender—just like in my whole wheat chocolate chip banana scones!

Ingredients

The ingredients for Irish brown bread laid out on a white marble counter.
  • Wheat Bran: To emulate traditional brown bread’s richer flavor and coarser texture, I substituted wheat bran for ½ cup of flour. You can also use 2 ½ cups of whole wheat flour and omit the wheat bran if you do not have it or care to find it, but I highly recommend it because then you can make banana bran muffins
  • Whole Wheat Flour: Traditional brown bread recipes use Irish wholemeal flour, which includes the bran, unlike many of the more processed American whole wheat flours. I use Bob’s Red Mill Whole Wheat flour, which is stone-ground and preserves a lot of the bran and nutrients but is ground finer than the Irish style.
  • All-purpose Flour 
  • Granulated Sugar: Granulated sugar adds a subtle sweetness and accentuates the nutty flavor of the whole wheat flour. You can reduce or omit the sugar. You could also use dark brown sugar. 
  • Baking Soda: Baking soda reacts once immediately when it comes into contact with the acid from the buttermilk. This not only creates the leavening in this quick bread but it also alters the flavor of the soda. 
  • Baking Powder: The remaining leavening is from baking powder, so as not to compromise either the flavor or the rise.
  • Kosher Salt
  • Butter: You can omit the unsalted butter in the bread if you would like, but the butter gives the bread a lovely richness and keeps the texture soft and the crumb short. You can also use salted Irish butter like Kerrygold and omit the kosher salt. 
  • Buttermilk: This recipe uses low-fat buttermilk. Full-fat buttermilk is too thick, and you’ll need to use more to get the dough to come together.

See the recipe card for full information on ingredients and quantities.

The difference between Irish Brown Bread and Irish Soda Bread

The key differences between Irish brown bread and Irish soda bread come from the ingredients. Both breads are made with baking soda and buttermilk, but Irish soda bread uses only all-purpose flour and often has raisins or caraway seeds. This is how it got the nickname of spotted dog bread. Irish brown bread uses whole wheat flour, which gives it  a slightly nutty flavor, a denser crumb, and a darker color. Meanwhile, Irish soda bread tends to be lighter, crumblier, and sometimes sweeter.

Variations

  • Play around with your favorite herbs. Add rosemary, thyme, chives, or oregano to the bread. Fresh chopped herbs would give the best flavor, but you could also use dried herbs. 
  • Mix in nuts, oats, and/or seeds. Toast some walnuts or pecans, allow them to cool, and add them to the bread. You could also play around with a seeded Irish brown bread by adding sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, quick oats, rolled oats or flax seeds. 
  • Make small Irish brown bread rolls. Perfect for dinner, you could make small dinner rolls. Divide the dough into 12 pieces and roll into balls. Slice each roll before baking and bake for 10-12 minutes until a tester comes out clean.

How to Make Irish Brown Bread

Use these instructions to make a perfect Irish brown bread every time! Further details and measurements can be found in the recipe card below.

Make the Irish Brown Bread: 

Step 1: Preheat the oven to 375°F conventional (no fan) or 350°F convection (with fan). I used a conventional oven set to 375°F to avoid overly drying out the crust with the fan. 

Step 2: In a large bowl or in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, toss together the wheat bran, whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and kosher salt. 

Whisk or turn on the mixer to evenly disperse all the leavening and wheat bran throughout the dry ingredients. 

Step 3: Add the cubed cold butter and either cut it in with a pastry blender or with a stand mixer until very few pieces remain; none should be larger than a grain of rice. 

Step 4: If using, remove the bowl from the stand mixer and stir in the buttermilk with a fork. Turn out the dough onto a smooth surface like a kitchen counter or a large wooden cutting board. 

Mixing the dry ingredients for Irish brown bread in a large bowl.
Step showing butter being incorporated into the Irish brown bread dough.
Using a pastry blender to mix the dough for Irish brown bread.

Step 5: Gently knead the dough into a round ball. 

Whole wheat flour and buttermilk both take longer to hydrate than all-purpose and plain milk. This allows the buttermilk to evenly hydrate the whole wheat gluten, thus retaining its structure when baked and not becoming tough. Over-kneading will, however, develop too much gluten, and the bread will be tough, dry, and unappetizing. 

Step 6: Place the dough onto a parchment-lined baking sheet or in a cast iron skillet. Using a sharp knife, cut a crisscross into the top of the dough, being sure to cut ½ inch deep. This allows for a controlled, even rise. 

Dough shaped into a round ball for Irish brown bread.
Unbaked Irish brown bread dough placed in a baking pan.

Step 7: Bake in the preheated oven for 40-45 minutes or until a skewer or cake tester comes out clean from the center. I rotated my loaf after 15 minutes. 

Step 8: Remove to a wire rack to cool completely before slicing. 

I served it with honey butter on day 2 and a rich chicken vegetable soup. 

The completed Irish brown bread, fully baked and golden.
Sliced Irish brown bread, showing the texture inside.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I store my Irish Brown Bread?

Irish brown bread is best the day it is made or the day after. Store at room temperature in a ziplock bag for up to 5 days or freeze for longer storage. Slice the bread before freezing for easy defrosting.

Can I omit the sugar?

You can reduce or omit the sugar if you desire. The sugar adds to the bread’s nutty flavor but is not a necessity.

What if I don’t have buttermilk?

You can make a substitution by adding 1 tablespoon of lemon juice or white vinegar for every cup of milk and letting it sit for 10 minutes. This will not produce the best Irish brown bread, but it will make something similar.

How do I serve my Irish brown bread?

Fresh Irish brown bread is truly delicious with butter or jam. You can dip it in a hearty soup or slice it into squares, toast them, and use them as croutons.

Freshly baked Irish brown bread resting on a wooden cutting board.

If you enjoyed this recipe, please leave a star rating and let me know how it goes in the comments below! I love hearing from you and your comments make my day!

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Sliced Irish brown bread laid out on a cutting board.

Irish Brown Bread

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  • Author: Lindsey Farr
  • Prep Time: 10 mins
  • Cook Time: 40 mins
  • Total Time: 50 mins
  • Yield: 1 9-inch loaf 1x
  • Category: Bread
  • Method: Baking
  • Cuisine: Irish
  • Diet: Vegetarian

Description

An easy Irish brown bread recipe that has a soft and tender inside with a crunchy crust! This simple, quick bread recipe tastes nutty and slightly sweet from the whole wheat flour.


Ingredients

Scale
  • 1/2 cup wheat bran (35g)
  • 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour (219g)
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour (248g)
  • 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1/2 cup unsalted butter, cold and cubed
  • 1 1/2 cups buttermilk

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 375°F conventional (no fan) or 350°F convection (with fan). I used a conventional oven set to 375°F to avoid overly drying out the crust with the fan. 
  2. In a large bowl or in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, toss together the wheat bran, whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and kosher salt. 
  3. Add the cubed cold butter and either cut it in with a pastry blender or with a stand mixer until very few pieces remain; none should be larger than a grain of rice. 
  4. If using, remove the bowl from the stand mixer and stir in the buttermilk with a fork. Turn out the dough onto a smooth surface like a kitchen counter or a large wooden cutting board. 
  5. Gently knead the dough into a round ball. 
  6. Place the dough onto a parchment-lined baking sheet or in a cast iron skillet. Using a sharp knife, cut a crisscross into the top of the dough, being sure to cut ½ inch deep. This allows for a controlled, even rise. 
  7. Bake in the preheated oven for 40-45 minutes or until a skewer or cake tester comes out clean from the center. I rotated my loaf after 15 minutes. 
  8. Remove to a wire rack to cool completely before slicing.

Notes

Yield – 1 round Irish brown bread loaf

Presentation – When cutting the loaf before baking make sure to cut at least a ½ inch deep. It is an Irish superstition that this will let the fairies out and ward off evil. It also helps the bread rise more evenly. 

Technique – With all quick breads, you want to be careful not to overmix the dough, or the bread can become tough and unappealing. 

Storage –Irish brown bread is best the day it is made or the day after. Store at room temperature in a ziplock bag for up to 5 days or freeze for longer storage.

Before You Go

I hope you enjoyed this chef-created brown bread. You’ll also love perusing all our quick bread and muffin recipes like these moist banana bread muffins!