irish brown bread

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.

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!

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

• 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.

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. 

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. 

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. 

Frequently Asked Questions

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!