Guinness Brown Bread

Guinness Brown Bread, a delicious variation of the classic Irish soda bread. It's a quick bread recipe that doesn't need any yeast nor proving, and it's on the table in under one hour. The buttermilk, Guinness stout and bicarb of soda act as the leavening agents in this bread to give it a lovely texture and great taste.

If the thought of making your own bread could sound rather daunting, soda bread is the answer to all your bread-making problems. No yeast means no waiting around for hours for the dough to raise in a perfectly warm environment, and you have delicious homemade bread in less than one hour.

Does it sound too good to be true? Well, it is true! Soda bread is traditionally made with buttermilk and bicarbonate of soda, which is used as a leavening agent to create a quick bread that is beautifully baked to a golden perfection.

My Irish Soda Bread is a great favourite with us, and I always make it when we have soups or stews for dinner. And if you want to serve it for the upcoming St Patrick's Day, what a better dish to have it with than the Irish Beef Stew with Guinness!

Another variation of the classic soda bread is my Soda Bread Rolls which are heavenly delicious and so easy to make. And now, another variation with a strong Irish touch: Guinness Bread!

The stout is used in combination with the buttermilk to activate the bicarb of soda to create a brown bread recipe that comes together quickly and it's pretty much failproof.

Jump to:

• Ingredients used
• Step-by-step photos and instructions
• Expert tips
• Guinness Brown Bread

Ingredients used

• wholemeal flour - or whole grain flour
• plain flour - or all purpose flour
• oats - I used jumbo oats for a bit of a texture
• Guinness - regular Guinness or no alcohol work well
• buttermilk
• bicarbonate of soda - acts as a leavening agent to make the bread rise
• salt - very important!
• brown sugar - adds colour and balances the bitterness of the stout
• butter - salted works the best

Step-by-step photos and instructions

1. sift the flours in a large mixing bowl
2. add the cold butter cut into cubes, and use your fingertips to rub it into the flours to create a mixture that resembles breadcrumbs
3. add the oats, salt, sugar and bicarbonate of soda, and mix everything well
4. pour in the buttermilk and stout, and use a spatula to combine all the ingredients into a thick sticky dough
5. butter and flour a 4lb loaf tin - mine has 23.5 x 11.5 x 8.5 dimensions
6. spread the dough well and bake in the preheated oven at 200 degrees Celsius for 45-50 minutes or until well risen and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean
7. leave it to cool down completely on a cooling rack before slicing

Expert tips

If the regular soda bread is traditionally round shaped, I find that this Guinness bread works better in a loaf tin, as the dough is a lot stickier and wetter than the regular bread dough.

Using bicarbonate of soda is crucial to get the bread going - do not substitute it for baking powder, or the bread will not work, and you will end up with a very dense soggy bread.

It is crucial to leave the bread to cool down completely before slicing it, as when it's still warm, as it doesn't have the right texture still. A perfectly baked bread is light without any soggy feeling to it.

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