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:

Heat the oven to 325°F. Grease a 9″ x 5″ loaf pan.
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.
Pour the dough into the greased loaf pan. Bake for 45-50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

5 Comments

Aimee @ Simple Bites wrote:
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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
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
Kate @ Diethood wrote:
I just want to sink my teeth into that loaf! That looks amazing!
Posted 3.17.14Reply
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)

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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What is the most popular bread in Ireland? ›

It is actually Irish wheaten or “Brown Bread” that is the most popular and arguably the most delicious type of traditional Irish bread that exists. It's so common that you'll find brown bread in almost every home on the island and it's so versatile that it's offered with a range of menu items.

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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.

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What is Irish flour made of? ›

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.

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.