Wheaten Bread and Honey

Today I (we) finally baked wheaten bread, a whole wheat soda bread recipe from Northern Ireland.  The recipe came from Mrs. Kincaid, actually, the doctor’s housekeeper in An Irish Country Doctor!  lol  I love that a fictional character dictated her recipes to me from the back of the book.  I was going to post her recipe here (I’m sure Kinky wouldn’t mind), but I had thought there was a mistake in the baking temperature, and after doing some research I found that I was right.  (Sorry, Kinky.)  So I updated the recipe to what I think it should be (you’ll see where I made the change).

While doing my research I found that soda bread isn’t just eaten in Ireland—various forms hail from Australia, Britain and Serbia.  Some are sweet and some are savory—the one I made today was definitely savory, and I can tell it’s a mealtime staple, with the simple ingredients of whole wheat flour, baking soda, salt, sugar and buttermilk.  We ate it in the morning hot from the oven with butter.  This evening I reheated some and drizzled a generous teaspoon of honey.  I think if it hadn’t been over baked if would have been more moist and less dense.

This is what I think the recipe should be:

Wheaten Bread Recipe

2 ½ cups whole wheat flour

1 tablespoon granulated sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 ¾ cups buttermilk

Mix dry ingredients very thoroughly. Then add 1 ¾ cups of buttermilk to make a thick paste.  Turn it into a well-greased loaf tin.  Bake at once at 400 degrees F for 15 minutes until risen; then bake a further 45 minutes at 375 degrees F. If top gets too brown, cover with parchment paper.  Serve with butter or chicken liver pate.

(In the book, the 375 degree instruction says 400, which I think is a mistake.  Otherwise they’d say bake for one hour at 400 degrees.)

My mom visited today and shared the bread with us, and I found out that I may have some Northern Irish in me after all.  I’d assumed we were from the South of Ireland, since we’re Catholic, but I learned (or re-learned) some family history today and may have some Northern roots after all. 

Sláinte!

P.S. Don't forget to come back next week for a week's worth of blogiversary giveaways!  Creating a Family Home is turning one, and I have some fun, crafty, knitterly giveaways planned!!