2013 Cooking Club Week 46: YABBR (Yet Another Brown Bread Recipe)

Yes it's another brown bread recipe, but this one is a bit different. My mother picked this up in a cookery demonstration a few years ago, and tweaked it a bit. This is her version. There are a lot of simple brown bread recipes that have 4 or 5 ingredients. With this one, there are a few more ingredients, but they give it a great distinct flavour. You can make this bread in an hour - 20 minutes preparation, 40 minutes cooking.

You don't need any special equipment, apart from a weighing scales, mixing bowl and 2 rectangular loaf tins.

So.... the ingredients:



(Watch out for teaspoons vs. tablespoons - get the teaspoon stuff wrong and it will probably ruin the bread. Teaspoon ingredients underlined.)

1lb Wholemeal Flour
2 tablespoons of Muesli
2 tablespoons of Porridge (oats)
4 teaspoons of brown (demerara) sugar
1 egg
1 tablespoon of treacle
2 tablespoons of sunflower seeds
2 tablespoons of pumpkin seeds
2/3 (two thirds) of a litre of buttermilk
1 teaspoon of sodium bicarbonate (bread soda)
1 pinch of granulated sugar *
1 tablespoon of sunflower oil
Choice of garnish (see bottom)

(* Not sure why a pinch - I'm just following the recipe. Grab some between your thumb and index finger - that's the quantity).

The sunflower/pumpkin seeds don't have to be organic - I just picked them up in a health food store while I was there. You can buy them in a supermarket too.

Part 1: Mix dry ingredients

Before starting, turn on your oven to about 185/190.

1. Measure out 1lb (one pound) of wholemeal flour and put it in your mixing bowl.



2. Add the rest of the dry ingredients:

- Porridge (2 tablespoons)
- Muesli (2 tablespoons) *
- Sunflower seeds (2 tablespoons)
- Pumpkin seeds (2 tablespoons)
- Brown sugar (4 teaspoons)
- Pinch of granulated sugar
- Sodium bicarbonate (1 teaspoon)

(* Personal preference - I remove the raisins/sultanas from the muesli - leave them in if you want! If you remove them, add a bit more muesli to compensate.)

Here is how it looks before mixing:



And after mixing:




Part 2: Add Wet Ingredients

1. You need to lightly whisk an egg. Crack a whole egg into something you can whisk in (I just crack it into a cup and whisk it for a minute using a fork).

2. Add the following to the mixed dry ingredients in your mixing bowl:

- Your beaten egg.
- Treacle (one tablespoon - keep a teaspoon handy to help scrape it off).
- Buttermilk (two thirds of a litre).
- Sunflower Oil (one tablespoon).

3. Mix it well (stir around with a wooden spoon for a couple of minutes) - you want to ensure that there are no little dry pockets of flour in there, and that the treacle is well mixed into the mixture.



4. Using some of the sunflower oil, lightly grease the inside of your tins. I just take about 4 sheets of kitchen paper folded over (so it's 4 sheets thick) and put some oil in the middle. Use the kitchen paper to rub the oil onto the inner walls of the tin. This makes it easier to get the bread out afterwards.

5. Split the mixture evenly across the 2 loaf tins, and wipe off any excess from the lip of the tins.



Part 3: Garnish

I like poppy seeds (see the tiny black seeds in the pictures). Mum likes using pecan nuts (spread evenly along the top - an alternating 2-1-2 formation works nicely!). Alternatively, you could put some pumpkin seeds on top (you will have some left over from the main mixture).