The Wall St. Journal had an excellent article on Irish Brown Bread for St. Patrick’s Day, and I made it for Easter morning breakfast. This recipe makes a very good whole grain bread. It is a lot like a less sweet bran muffin. The only drawback is that since the dough is very wet (more like a thick batter) this loaf takes relatively long to bake, nearly an hour. I mixed up all the dry ingredients the night before, and then added the buttermilk and mixed it up while the oven was heating up. Then it was fresh out of the oven for a slightly late breakfast. I made this with King Arthur Flour’s Irish Style flour, which is a coarsely ground whole wheat flour which imitates the flour available in Ireland

This recipe will make 1 loaf in a 9 x 5 inch bread pan.

1-3/4 cups whole wheat flour

7/8 cup all-purpose flour

¾ cup wheat bran

5/8 cups steel cut oats

2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. baking powder

2 tsp. dark brown sugar

1 tsp. salt

¼ cup wheat germ

18 oz. buttermilk at room temperature

Mix together the dry ingredients.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Grease a 9 x 5 inch bread pan. Mix the buttermilk into the dry ingredients until well mixed. Pour the batter into the bread pan

Bake until golden and crusty, about 50 minutes.

Allow to cool for 5 minutes in the pan, and then turn onto a cake rack to continue cooling. Wait at least another 5 minutes before slicing the bread and serving.