Ballymaloe Brown Bread

One of my favourites, the addition of treacle gives a dark sweetness to the bread.

It's also the first bread that I baked at Ballymaloe Cookery School and is, helpfully, a no-knead bread.

Ingredients

Makes 1 loaf

400g (14oz) strong (stoneground) wholemeal flour plus 50g (2oz) strong white flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon black treacle

425ml (3?4 pint) water, at blood heat

25g (1 ½ packs dried) fresh Yeast

Sesame seeds/ Oats/ Poppy Seeds (optional)

Sunflower oil

1 loaf tin 12.5 x 20cm (5 x 8in)

Method

Preheat the oven to 230°C/450°F/ gas mark 8.

Mix the flour with the salt in a mixing bowl. In a small bowl or Pyrex jug.

Mix the treacle with some of the water, 150ml (¼ pint) and crumble in the yeast. Leave to sit for a few minutes in a warm place to allow the yeast to start to work.

Meanwhile, grease the bread tins with sunflower oil. Check to see if the yeast is rising. After about 4–5 minutes, it will have a creamy and slightly frothy appearance on top.

When ready, stir and pour it, with all the remaining water (300ml/½ pint), into the flour to make loose, wet dough. (Don't mix it until all the water is in; otherwise it tends to go lumpy.) The mixture should be too wet to knead.

Leave for 5-10 minutes then pour into the greased tin.

Put the, seeds or oats on the top if you like.

Cover the tin with a tea towel to prevent a skin from forming and leave the bread to rise. This will take anything from 10–20 minutes, depending on the temperature of your kitchen.

When the dough has almost come to the top of the tin, remove the tea towel and pop the loaves into the oven. The bread will rise a little further in the oven; this is called 'oven spring'. If the bread rises to the top of the tin before you put it into the oven, it will continue to rise and will flow over the edges.

Cook for 20 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 200°C/400°F/gas mark 6 and cook for a further 40–50 minutes, until your bread looks nicely browned and sounds hollow when tapped.