Ireland’s best brown bread takes trial and error
Special to The Washington Post
As I settled in to my seat on a flight to Ireland last summer, I drifted into a gentle daydream. Soon my girlfriend and I would arrive in County Clare to spend a week with our friends Ruan and Sal. We’d reach Sal’s parents’ rural home across the bay from Galway City, and be immediately greeted with a warm loaf of freshly baked brown bread. Sal’s effusive descriptions of her hometown over the years had prepped me for this moment, and I could almost smell the bread.
A couple of hours later, this scene unfolded more or less as I had dreamed it.
During our time in Clare, we ate a wonderful array of home-cooked dishes: a traditional roast dinner of lamb, a feast of local shellfish, hearty Irish breakfasts and frequent snacks. The thread holding it all together was the omnipresent brown bread. With a deeply toasted exterior and moist, pleasantly chewy interior, it was unlike any loaf I’d had. It was versatile, wholesome and, as I would come to learn, easy to make — once I figured it out.
One morning, I joined Sal’s mom, Jan, in the kitchen as she prepared the day’s loaves. It couldn’t have been simpler: We mixed oats, yogurt, baking soda, a little flaxseed meal, an egg and a bit of milk to form a slightly sticky dough. This went into prepared loaf tins and a 180 degree C (or 350 degree F) oven. I watched as she took the golden loaves out 50 minutes later, turned them out of their tins and put them back in the oven upside-down for 10 minutes to crisp and darken. I’m a confident cook who has always left baking to bakers. But this, I thought, I could do.
My first attempt was inedible: I’d messed up the ratios. The recipe I’d sloppily recorded on my iPhone combined exact measurements with vague oral instructions: 500 grams (or about 17.6 ounces) of oats, but a “good dollop” of milk. Jan made it look so easy that I was sure it would all just come together. Not quite.
I was more distressed with my second and third loaves. The outsides were beige, covered in raw-looking oats; the insides were bone dry. It occurred to me that Jan hadn’t used Greek yogurt, as I had. And when I looked back at my photos, I realized she hadn’t used regular rolled oats, either. Somehow I’d managed to mess up the two main ingredients.
By now I was even more determined, motivated as much by the desire to taste it again as the need to make Ruan and Sal proud. I’d been sending embarrassing photos of my failures to our group chat, but after my fourth loaf disappointed, too, it was time for serious troubleshooting. The texture had improved with quick-cooking oats (an Irish brand, obviously), and I’d even bought fresh baking soda. But I was still making Irish tan bread.
At this point, Ruan chimed in: “It’s not a Celsius to Fahrenheit mistake is it?” If only. I had adjusted Jan’s 180 degrees into the standard American 350, but something clearly had to change. I needed to leave the loaves in longer, increase the temperature, or — this was the a-ha moment — both.
My next two loaves were darker, but still a bit dry. And Sal’s euphemistic response of “It looks pretty good!!” told me I still had work to do. So I zeroed in on the “dollop of milk.” I measured out what I thought would work, and put my seventh (!) loaf in the oven with a prayer. It came out perfect: a rich, gorgeous brown on the outside and marvelously close-textured on the inside.
I sent my friends another photo. When Sal replied “Oooh mama!!!” — maternal reference not intended but appreciated — I knew I’d finally succeeded. Since then, my brown breads have been wonderfully consistent (and, yes, easy), and I’ve gotten my family hooked, too. Now Ruan and Sal can try something from my tradition, and they have a standing invitation to any Jewish holiday at my parents’ house. Maybe braided challah is next. Or maybe we’ll just start eating brown bread on Rosh Hashana.
JAN O’HALLORAN’S BROWN BREAD
8 servings (makes one 8-inch loaf)
Serve with salted butter.
Unsalted butter, for greasing the parchment paper
2 cups plain whole-milk or low-fat yogurt
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 tablespoons flaxseed meal (ground flaxseed)
1 large egg, beaten
½ teaspoon salt
1 pound (about 4 ½ cups) quickcooking oats (do not use instant oats) ¼ cup whole or low-fat milk Preheat the oven to 400 F. Line an 8-by-4-inch loaf pan (metal or glass) with buttered parchment paper.
Combine the yogurt and baking soda in a mixing bowl. Stir gently — small bubbles should begin to form and the mixture should fizz a bit. Add the flaxseed meal, beaten egg and salt, folding very gently from the edges toward the center.
Fold in half of the oats, then add the rest of the oats, and finally the milk, stirring to form a slightly sticky, dense dough. Transfer to the loaf pan and smooth out the top and sides, making sure the dough is sitting as evenly as possible.
Use the tip of a sharp knife to make a shallow slit lengthwise down the center, beginning and ending about an inch from the edges of the loaf pan. Bake (middle rack) for 1 hour, until the top is a deep golden brown.
Carefully remove the loaf from the pan and discard the parchment paper. Then, put a sheet of aluminum foil onto the oven rack, and place the bread on it, upside down. Bake for 10 minutes, until all the sides are a uniform, rich shade of brown.
Transfer the bread to a wire rack to cool completely, right side up; it will seem quite moist, but will firm up as it cools. Cool completely before serving or storing.
Nutritional information per serving (using low-fat yogurt and milk): 270 calories, 11 g protein, 44 g carbohydrates, 6 g fat, 2 g saturated fat, 30 mg cholesterol, 520 mg sodium, 6 g dietary fiber, 5 g sugar
Adapted from a recipe by Jan O’Halloran, a cook in County Clare, Ireland.