Dark Guinness Soda Bread

Just before Christmas we treated ourselves to a pre-holiday dinner at The Guinea Grill pub in Mayfair, London. It’s one of these pubs where the traditional food and drink has remained the main focus of a very smooth run operation – recently expand by the adjoining premises and it’s even busier than I can remember.
We were seated at a cosy corner table laid with a crisp white tablecloth and welcomed with a familiar proper service.
The dinner started with a glass of champagne (for me), gin and tonic and browsing through the menu. Next, a large tray held aloft arrived followed by a question: would you like some bread madame, sir? Oh, yes please! I’ll take a slice of your white sourdough and another one of your Guinness bread, than you!
Strangely, somehow I had never tried a Guinness bread before and it was just lovely, very dark with a distinctive taste, and a pure joy topped with slightly salted cold butter.
The dinner was a delicious affair as ever, but I got really beguiled by that stout soda bread, which I decided to bake at home, but not before Christmas.
So here I’m, after a little trial and error, sharing the recipe for the Dark Guinness and Soda Bread that we enjoy the most: soft, moist and very fragrant. It’s quick to make, it only involves stirring all the ingredients until well combined, and then popping it into the preheated oven. The recipe below comes from www.clodaghmckenna.com and I only tweaked the baking temperature and timing for a slightly crispier bread top (Clodagh suggests baking it at 180 C in a static oven for 45 minutes; I actually needed over an hour in my oven for the dough to bake through).

Method:

• 400 g of wholemeal flour (sifting is optional but I like to do it anyway)
• 100 g of rolled oats plus some more for the topping
• 2 teaspoons of bread soda
• 1 teaspoon of sea salt
• 330 ml of Guinness
• 170 ml of buttermilk
• 2 tablespoons of black treacle

Preheat the oven to 220 C / 200 C Fan.
Grease a loaf tin (my tin measurements: 25 cm x 12 cm ) with some butter and line it with a sheet of baking parchment.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, oats, soda and the salt.
Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients.

In a separate container or a measuring jug stir well the black treacle, buttermilk and the Guinness.
Pour the liquid into the bowl (into the formed well) and stir with a large wooden spoon until the ingredients form a dough (the mixture will appear quite wet).
Pour the dough into the prepared tin, sprinkle some oats on top and place it in the preheated oven.
After 15 minutes lower the baking temperature to 190 C / 170 C Fan, and bake for further 35-40 minutes.

Once baked allow it to cool on a cooling rack.

Serve still slightly warm or at room temperature, ideally with lashings of a good cold butter.
It’s wonderful for breakfast, with a hearty soup for lunch or serve it as a sharing starter alongside with some hams, cheeses and smoked salmon.