Recipe: Guinness Bread | Cooking On the Side (2024)

Bread

With St. Patrick’s Day coming up, my eyes turned toward the random bottle of Guinness that’s been sitting in my fridge for…well, I’m not even sure how long it’s been there at this point. Long enough that I began contemplating ways I could cook with it, rather than drink it!

I found a terrific recipe for Guinness Bread on the Guinness website. It made a huge, sandwich-quality loaf of dark, lightly sweet bread that was far less cakey than other beer breads I’ve made. Warm brown bread with a good smear of soft Irish butter…definitely one of life’s simple pleasures.

As with most beer breads, this one was very easy to pull together except that, since the recipe came from a European website, it took quite a bit of conversion and Google searching for me to translate it into “American”. For example, I had to confirm that “bread soda” was the same thing as “baking soda” and that molasses would be a suitable substitute for “black treacle”. I have a kitchen scale and measuring cups with metric markers so following all the grams and milliliters wasn’t a problem (it actually made things easy), but I went ahead and converted it all to cups for my American friends who don’t own a scale. Lastly, the oven temperature…170°C doesn’t translate neatly to a standard Fahrenheit temperature (it’s between 325°F and 350°F) so I erred on the side of the lower one, and extended the baking time.

Like I said, the recipe makes a huge loaf. It didn’t say which size loaf pan to use — I’m definitely glad I went with the larger 9″ x 5″ (vs 8″ x 4″) because the batter filled the pan and it domed up substantially during baking. Do yourself a big favor and be sure to do the toothpick check to be sure it’s completely done inside before taking it out of the oven!

You’re in luck — I’ve done all the translations for you in the recipe below. In addition, Guinness has a quick video for this recipe, which I found helpful (I never would have known to mix the butter and dry ingredients with my fingers, like a pie crust). Enjoy this amazing bread!

Guinness Bread

Adapted from the Guinness Bread recipe on the Guinness website.

Prep time: 15 minutes | Cook time: 50 minutes | Total time: 1 hour 5 minutes

Yield: 1 loaf

INGREDIENTS:

  • 5 cups (600g) whole wheat flour
  • 1 1/4 cups (150g) all-purpose flour
  • 3/4 cup (75g) rolled oats
  • 2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons brown sugar
  • 3 tablespoons (40g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
  • 2 cups (480ml) milk
  • 3/4 cup (200ml) molasses
  • 1 cup Guinness

DIRECTIONS:

  1. Heat the oven to 325°F. Grease a 9″ x 5″ loaf pan.
  2. In a large bowl, use your fingers to mix the butter with all the dry ingredients until the dough develops the consistency of breadcrumbs. Add the milk, molasses and beer and mix, either with your fingers or a wooden spoon, until you have a wet dough.
  3. Pour the dough into the greased loaf pan. Bake for 45-50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Bread

5 Comments

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5 Comments

  1. This looks so dark and delicious, I checked right away to see if there was molasses in it. Sure enough! Can’t wait to try it. 🙂

    Posted 3.17.14Reply

  2. Bridget wrote:

    I found this recipe thanks to Aimee at Simple Bites. I’m big fan of baking with beer (love the extra flavour boost) so will be sure to give this a try.

    Posted 3.17.14Reply

  3. I just want to sink my teeth into that loaf! That looks amazing!

    Posted 3.17.14Reply

  4. John Ratcliffe wrote:

    So, made this exactly as per recipe, used standard sized bread pan. It massively expanded and made a bit of a mess in oven below the loaf pan, no big deal there but the bigger issue was I had to bake it at prescribed temp for about 40 minutes longer (90 minutes total) in order for it to get the clean toothpick. My wife thought it was supposed to be for two bread pans, and that would have likely worked out pretty good. The taste is phenomenal, love it, but have to do something different next time, I believe there was an error in recipe

    Posted 12.2.19Reply

    • Kathy Strahs wrote:

      It definitely makes a huge loaf!

      Posted 12.2.19Reply

Recipe: Guinness Bread | Cooking On the Side (2024)

FAQs

What is Irish style flour? ›

Irish Flour is whole grain or whole wheat flour coarsely ground from red whole wheat. It's a bit more coarse than regular whole wheat flour. Most recipes sub out 1 cup of the Irish-style whole wheat flour for all-purpose flour for Irish Brown Bread.

How do you eat Irish brown bread? ›

Enjoy warm or at room temperature. Serve with sweet butter and a dollop of marmalade, if desired. Store, well-wrapped, for a couple of days at room temperature; freeze for longer storage.

What is Irish brown bread made of? ›

Made with whole wheat flour, wheat germ, and rolled oats, this simple Irish brown bread comes together in no time and yields a hearty, super tasty loaf, perfect for toasting and slathering with butter and jam.

What is the difference between Irish flour and American flour? ›

Irish “brown” flour is much “weaker” (lower in gluten) than American whole-wheat flour—good for the delicate texture of Irish brown bread and for pastry, but not so good for yeast breads. Nothing in America is quite like it.

Is Irish brown bread the same as Irish soda bread? ›

If you really want to get technical, brown bread is a form of soda bread since it uses baking soda as the leavening agent. However, the two loaves differ pretty significantly from there. Irish brown bread has a deep, nutty flavor because of its wheat flour and wheat bran while soda bread uses only white flour.

What is the most popular bread in Ireland? ›

Most Irishmen and women eat Irish brown bread for breakfast or lunch. It's best served simple, with a pad of Kerrygold butter or used as a dunker with soup.

Why is Irish bread so good? ›

It was for everyday use, and its distinctive soft, crumbly, dense texture results from the "soft" wheat that grows in the cool climate of Ireland, meaning that it doesn't have enough protein to form the gluten structure of yeast-raised breads. Hence the use of baking soda, originally potash, as a leavening agent.

What makes Irish bread different? ›

In the United States, "Irish soda bread" generally means a somewhat sweet white bread made with eggs and butter and studded with raisins and caraway seeds — the "soda" in the name comes from the baking soda (or "bread soda" in Ireland) used to leaven it instead of yeast and kneading.

What is the national bread of Ireland? ›

Each country has its “national” bread with recipes dating back to their forefathers. Ireland, for one, has embraced it's kind of bread – the soda bread. It is a basic staple among the Irish that they call it Irish Soda Bread.

What does an Irish breakfast look like? ›

A traditional full Irish breakfast comprises bacon, sausage, eggs, potatoes, beans, soda bread or toast, tomatoes, mushrooms, and white or black pudding.

What is Irish flour made of? ›

Irish wholemeal flour is milled from lower protein soft winter wheat and contains less of the strength-forming elasticity found in all-purpose flour, bread flour, and other wheat flours (which are made with higher protein hard winter wheat).

What is the Irish equivalent of cake flour? ›

I would use any of these three options depending on the type of cake. Plain flour - All purpose white flour. Self-raising - White flour with raising agents within. Strong plain flour - High gluten flour usually prefered when working with yeasts.

Is Irish flour bleached? ›

Bleaches are not on the list, so flour, or any other food with bleach in it, can't be sold by any country in the European Union, including Ireland. GM flour: There are also no genetically modified flours used in Ireland. Even if there were, they would have to be declared on the label, by law.

What is all-purpose flour in Ireland? ›

Cream Plain Flour, also known as All-Purpose Flour, typically has no raising agent {athough, Odlum's has a low level of raising agent}. It is a good choice for making biscuits {cookies}, muffins, soda breads, cakes, pastry, pancakes, crumbles, fried foods, gravy, soups, and sauces.

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