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IRISH OATMEAL WHEATEN BREAD

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Oatmeal & water
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After mixing in the butter, buttermilk, cold milk and sugar
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The 'porridge' after adding flour, bicarb & salt
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The soda bread smoothed over in your tin
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​H​aving just returned from what seemed like the most expensive country in the world, no, not Switzerland or Norway, but the Republic of Ireland, one of the few things I could afford to eat was the wheaten bread. Which is a good job, seeing it is served with everything.
And very nice it was too, with a soft 'cakey' texture, slight tang and thin crust.

It was better than any wheaten or soda bread I had bought and tried here in dear old Blighty, very much like the Guinness which is always better in its home country and which I had to sample for research purposes you understand.

So once back from Ireland and having checked my bank account to see if I had any money left in it, I ventured out to buy the simple ingredients needed for a good traditional wheaten bread. 

After checking a few recipes I decided a more wholesome wheaten bread was the order of the day using wholemeal flour instead of white, this being the distinction in Ireland where white flour = soda bread and wholemeal flour = wheaten bread. This information came from my wife, who being Northern Irish knows a thing or two about soda bread, oh, and potatoes.

Bicarbonate of soda and buttermilk react together to give the rise and airiness to the bread while pinhead oatmeal, a little butter and sugar help with the taste and texture.

The recipe came from one of my favourite cookbooks "Short and Sweet" by Dan Lepard, apart from the buttermilk which I have used instead of Dan's yoghurt.

INGREDIENTS
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  • 100g pinhead oatmeal (or coarse oatmeal)
  • 225ml water
  • 30g butter
  • 100g buttermilk
  • 200ml milk straight from the fridge
  • 1½ tbsp brown sugar
  • 325g wholemeal flour
  • 1½ tspn bicarbonate of soda
  • ¾ tspn fine sea salt

METHOD
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Place the water and oatmeal in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Remove from the heat, put on a lid and leave for an hour. 
 

Add the butter and stir to melt. If the butter doesn't melt straight away just add a little heat to the pan and stir through.
Whisk in the buttermilk, cold milk and sugar until it is smooth with no lumps.

Prepare a 20cm square cake tin by brushing with a little butter and lining the base with some baking parchment.

Pre-heat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan.

Mix the flour, bicarb and salt with the oatmeal ‘porridge’ and pour into the tin. Smooth over the top, cover with foil and bake for 15 minutes.
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Then remove the foil and continue to bake for another 30 minutes or until a nice golden brown.
Leave in tin for 10 minutes then remove and leave to cool on a cooling rack.

Great with cheeses, cooked meats, smoked salmon, pate, soups or basically anything!

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