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

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

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? ›

What is Irish-style flour? Our Irish-style flour, also known as Irish wholemeal, is a US-grown, bran-flecked, soft whole wheat flour, perfect for traditional Irish baked goods (and much, much more). Similar to whole wheat pastry flour, Irish wholemeal contains all of the bran, endosperm, and germ of the wheat berry.

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 Irish bran? ›

Bran son of Febal was the High King of Ireland who one day was visited by the Queen of the Island of Women, one of the three times fifty Islands of the Otherworld, in the seas West of Ireland. Enraptured, he set sail through the seas of the Otherworld to find her.

What is a substitute for Irish-style flour in baking? ›

*If you don't have access to KA's whole meal Irish-style flour, you can substitute Whole wheat pastry flour. It will be finer, and the loaf a be a bit moister, but it is an adequate substitute.

What is a substitute for Irish-style flour in soda bread? ›

Tips from our Bakers. Our Irish-style flour will result in a soda bread with superior flavor and texture. Substituting premium whole wheat or white whole wheat flour is fine, but you'll want to reduce the amount of whole wheat to 2 1/4 cups and substitute the bread flour with all-purpose 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.

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 is a cool Irish name for a dog? ›

Other Popular Irish Dog Names

The Irish Gaelic word for “dog” is “madra,” and there are other Gaelic dog-related words that might make great names for your pet. These include 'Madigan' (meaning 'little dog'), Murphy (meaning 'hound of the sea'), and Conan (meaning 'hound').

Who is the dog in the Irish myth? ›

Failinis [FAW IHN-ish] or Ṡalinnis/Shalinnis is a dog in the Mythological Cycle of Irish literature, belonging to Lugh Lámhfhada of the Tuatha Dé Danann; it was one of the eric (reparation) items exacted from the sons of Tuireann.

What is raven in Irish? ›

Branagán – masculine – Irish (a double diminutive of bran, which means "raven").

What is King Arthur Irish style flour? ›

Varieties of Irish-style wholemeal flour

For example, King Arthur Baking Company sells a custom blend that's coarsely ground from red whole wheat. It was inspired by the whole grain flours used in traditional Irish baking and works for any recipe that requires wholemeal.

Is Irish flour bleached? ›

You might see it listed as Wheatflour (Wheat, Calcium Carbonate, Iron, Thiamin, Niacin). Finally, it is really important to know that in the UK and EU, it is illegal to bleach flour, so the whiteness you see is totally natural.

What is the difference between American and Irish soda bread? ›

Soda bread in Ireland, which you may see referred to as brown soda bread, tends to be heartier, more rustic fare, featuring wholemeal flour, a different product than our whole-wheat flour. The currant- and caraway-studded version is more common in the United States.

Is Caputo flour the same as bread flour? ›

Are bread flour and 00 flour the same? The difference between bread flour and 00 flour is the protein content, and therefore the gluten levels. Strong bread flours tend to have higher levels of gluten compared to 00 flour.

Top Articles
Latest Posts
Article information

Author: Tish Haag

Last Updated:

Views: 6115

Rating: 4.7 / 5 (67 voted)

Reviews: 90% of readers found this page helpful

Author information

Name: Tish Haag

Birthday: 1999-11-18

Address: 30256 Tara Expressway, Kutchburgh, VT 92892-0078

Phone: +4215847628708

Job: Internal Consulting Engineer

Hobby: Roller skating, Roller skating, Kayaking, Flying, Graffiti, Ghost hunting, scrapbook

Introduction: My name is Tish Haag, I am a excited, delightful, curious, beautiful, agreeable, enchanting, fancy person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.