Boosting my food

Just in time for Saint Patrick's Day, I've returned to one of my obsessions and rethought brown soda bread a bit. It's been more than five years since I posted the recipe I finally settled on, after many tries, to make a simple bread for Brad and Cassie's lunches when I didn't have time to deal with the bread machine in addition to the rest of the weekend baking. At the time, I opted to skip the wheat germ that many recipes include to help mimic the nutty-textured wholemeal flour used in Irish brown soda bread in favor of two things I always have in my pantry: quick oats and flaxseed meal.

 

I've since decided I can live with making room in our fridge for a bottle of toasted wheat germ (Boost Your Food™!). I've also substantially increased the amount of quick oats, which I use to replace the two types of oats—rolled and steel-cut—that are called for in the Fallon & Byrne recipe this is adapted from, which make the bread too chewy in my opinion. Once you have the wheat germ on hand (you can put some in your smoothies to Boost Your Food™ even more), this version is actually quicker and easier than the first brown soda bread (which was already quick and easy but for rubbing in some butter, which has been omitted here). You can get this updated version into the oven in about 7 minutes, and out about 35 minutes after that, so bread doesn't get any faster than this. 🍀🍀🍀

 

 

Brown Soda Bread 2.0

Adapted from Fallon & Byrne (a Dublin restaurant and food shop) via Bon Appétit (Jan. 24, 2010 article and recipe), and see Martha Rose Shulman’s enthusiastic take on this recipe in the New York Times (Mar. 17, 2014)

Time: 43 minutes (7 minutes active)

I now use Bob's Red Mill Quick Cooking Rolled Oats, which Mom swears by for her oatmeal. The other option is Quaker Quick 1-Minute Oats. You can use either of those to make Katherine Redford's Chocolate Chip Cookies. You can swap the amounts of all-purpose and whole wheat flour if you like.

 

100 grams (~¾ cup) unbleached all-purpose flour
65 grams (~½ cup) whole wheat flour, white or regular (see note)
50 grams (rounded ½ cup) quick oats (see note)
25 grams (~¼ cup) toasted wheat germ
12 grams (1 tablespoon) brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
¾ teaspoon fine sea salt
300 grams (1¼ cups) buttermilk or plain unsweetened kefir

    1. Place a rack in the center of the oven; heat to 350 degrees. Spray a one-pound (8½ x 4½-inch) loaf pan with nonstick spray.
    2. In a large bowl, whisk together all of the ingredients except the buttermilk. Pour in the buttermilk. Using a silicone spatula, stir the buttermilk into the dry ingredients until just combined. Scrape the shaggy dough into the prepared pan and smooth the top.
    3. Bake until the top of the loaf is golden brown, the sides have come away from the edges of the pan, and a tester inserted into the center comes out clean and dry, about 35 minutes (the internal temperature should be about 195 to 200 degrees). Turn the loaf out onto a wire rack to cool. Serve with good butter or jam. Makes 1 small loaf.