Well it's a treasured thing to come across a really good brown bread recipe and this is one of the best ones. Not really what you would call a traditional Irish soda bread as there are loads of ingredients in it. Most traditional ones have a fairly minimal set of ingredients. One of the important things in this kind of bread is that where it calls for coarse wholewheat flour you should really not substitute for just wholewheat flour. Tis worth seeking it out even if it's not available in the local shop. In Vancouver (possibly in the rest of N. America) they don't seem to have coarse but they have flour labelled 'stone-milled' which is pretty rough.
120g Cream flour (all-purpose will do)
120g wheat bran
90g wheat germ
90g oat bran
300g pinhead oatmeal
325g coarse wholemeal flour
325g extra coarse wholemeal flour
1 heaped tsp baking powder
3 heaped tsp bread soda
1.3 Litres of buttermilk
If you can't get the extra coarse then just use 650g of coarse.
Preheat oven to 450F/230C.
Mix it all together dry in a bowl, must be well mixed to ensure the baking powder and baking soda get evenly distributed. Add 1.3 litres of buttermilk and mix thoroughly. If you can't get buttermilk (or just don't have it handy) then get one 1.3 litres of normal milk and add 2 tablespoons of lemon juice to it. Swish it around and leave it for 15 mins and then lash that in instead.
Prep the loaf tins by rubbing butter all round the inside and then coating in wheat germ...
When that's done divide evenly between three loaf tins and pop it in the oven.
10 mins on 450F/230C and then turn down the oven to 270F/130C for another hour.
Forgot to say that you can sprinkle oatmeal or sesame seeds (as pictured) over the top as the final step if you wish...
Banging!
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