Darina Allen is a well-known cook whose family owns Ballymaloe House, a hotel, restaurant, and cookery school in Cork, Ireland. In 2018 Phil Rosenthal, host of the Netflix show Somebody Feed Phil visited her at Ballymaloe (Season 2, Episode 2). She cooked and served Phil a farm breakfast, with butter, harvested honey, fresh eggs, bacon from a nearby farm, and of course, homemade Irish soda bread bursting with raisins. It was a hearty, rustic bread. Like that soda bread, this is Darina’s recipe for brown bread, a name that both evokes the color and the main ingredient, whole wheat flour.
The bread comes together without a mixer, and bakes in 1 hour. Because whole wheat flour is more hygroscopic than bread flour, meaning it absorbs moisture, it requires a lot of water, 390ml to be exact, almost as much liquid as flour. I didn’t have molasses so I used browning sauce, which, like molasses is also made from brown sugar, and which Jamaicans use as coloring in baking. The dough bakes up dense and spongy, a good sturdy bread for butter, jam, and honey.
Brown Bread
Yield: 1 pound loaf
4 cups/450g whole wheat flour (I used PC Organic Whole Wheat Flour)
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
1 tablespoon molasses or treacle (I used browning sauce)
2 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast
1 tablespoon butter for greasing the pan
1 tablespoon sesame or poppy seeds or a combination of both
Special Equipment: 1 8-inch pullman loaf pan, without the lid
In a large bowl, combine flour and salt. Set aside. Heat the oven to 450˚F/230˚C.
In a measuring cup, add 150ml of lukewarm water (105˚F-115˚F). Stir in the molasses or browning sauce. Stir in the yeast. Let stand in a warm place 5 minutes or until the surface is frothy.
Generously butter the pullman pan and line the bottom and sides with a long piece of parchment paper to make a sling with which you can lift out the bread. Chill the pan while you prepare the bread dough.
Pour the yeast mixture into the flour mixture. Do not wash out the measuring cup, but add 275ml, nearly 1 1/4 cups of lukewarm water to the cup. It’s best to mix the dough with your hands so you can break up any chunks of flour. Add the water to the dough in four batches, mixing well after each addition, squeezing the liquid into the flour. The dough will be a porridge-like consistency. Let the dough rest 5 minutes to absorb the water.
Scrape the dough into the prepared pan and cover lightly with a clean kitchen towel, making sure the overhanging parchment is not touching the top of the dough nor is the towel. Let rest in a warm draft-free place for 15-25 minutes or until the top of the dough is about 1/4-inch from the rim of the pan. Remove the towel and scatter over the top the sesame/poppy seeds.
Bake 20 minutes. Then reduce heat to 400˚F/200˚C. Continue baking 30 minutes or until the top is golden brown. Remove the pan from the oven but do not turn off the oven. Let rest on a wire cooling rack. Grasping the ends of the parchment paper, lift out the loaf and remove and discard the parchment paper. Place the loaf upside down on the cooling rack. Using oven mitts, return the loaf upside down to the oven, putting it directly on top of the oven rack. Bake 10 minutes more.
Cool the loaf on the wire cooling rack 10 minutes. It can be sliced right away or when the loaf has thoroughly cooled in 1 hour.
Foodie Joanie 