Home Comforts

For me, total comfort food includes my mum's roast dinners, my mums pavlova, and my grand-mothers home made brown bread, still warm from the oven, with melted butter, dripping off the sides.

When my mum used to visit her, she would send a few loaves of bread up for me. You would travel miles for it. That and her homemade strawberry jam. I can taste it now!!
However, my granny didn't exactly have a recipe for the bread. It was a bit haphazard and was a cup of this, and a handful of that. I think that it was one of my aunts who followed her around the kitchen one afternoon measuring and weighing everything , and then kindly shared the recipe with us.

I make it in a big batch, and freeze about 3 of the loaves to keep for later. Otherwise I would eat it all!

You need to pre-heat the oven to 200C. And grease and flour 4 loaf tins.
You will need;

8oz white flour, 2.5lbs wheaten flour

3tsp soda, 2.5 oz margarine

2oz sugar, 2oz oatmeal, 2oz wheatgerm,

5oz bran, pinch of salt

1 litre & half pint of buttermilk

Mix the flours and the salt together and rub the margarine in as much as you can.
Mix the rest of the dry ingredients into the flour mix. Add the milk and mix really well and knead.

Turn the mixture into the loaf tins and flatten the top. Score the surface of the bread with a knife.
Place in the oven at 200 for 30 mins. Then turn down the heat to 130 and bake for a further 30 mins.
Allow the bread to cool slightly in the tins before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.




Enjoy the bread warm from the oven with butter and jam. Or toast it and have with a runny poached egg.

Orls
xxx

Ps: I have made this bread dairy free in the past. Substitute the margarine with soya spread and instead of buttermilk, use soya spread with vinegar. For every cup of soyamilk, add a one tablespoon of white wine vinegar. Wait for about 20 mins until the mix has curdled. Then add to the mixture as normal.