Traditional Irish Brown Bread

My sister Kerri sent me this recipe months ago as we all love Traditional Irish Brown Bread as daily staple when we have visited there. This recipe is from Chef Stuart Okeeffe. It was easy to make - we felt it didn't rise as much as we would have wanted it to but I think it was due to the heat and humidity the day we made it. We made our on parchment paper on a baking sheet. Apologies for the weird angle pic - Kevin is into sending pics of the breads he makes to chat GPT for critiques!!!

2 cups whole wheat flour

1 cup all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon of fine sea salt

1 3/4 cups buttermilk

Heat oven to 425. Line a baking sheet or cast iron pan with parchment

In a bowl mix the 4 dry ingredients.

Make a well in the center and pour in most of the buttermilk. Mix with your hand until it comes together. Add the remaining buttermilk if it feels dry. The dough should be soft not sticky.

Turn onto a lightly floured surface and gently shape into a round loaf about 2" thick. DO NOT KNEAD.

Place on the baking sheet or cast iron pan and cut a deep cross + on top with a knife.

Bake 35-40 minutes until the crust is firn and the bottomsounds hollow when tapped (this was a really cool sound!)

Let cool at least 20 minutes before slicing.

Serve thick slices with salted Irish butter! YUM!