Ballymaloe brown yeast bread

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 230ºC.

2. The ingredients should all be at room temperature.

3. Mix the flour with the salt.

4. In a small bowl or Pyrex jug, mix the treacle with 140ml of the water and crumble in the yeast.

5. Sit the bowl in a warm place for a few minutes to allow the yeast to take effect.

6. Grease the bread tins with sunflower oil, then check to see if the yeast mixture is rising. After about four or five minutes, it’ll have a creamy and frothy appearance on top.

7. When ready, stir and pour the yeast mixture, with the remaining water, into the flour and salt to make a loose, wet dough. Put the dough into the greased tin and sprinkle it with sesame seeds if you like. Put the tin in a warm place — somewhere close to the cooker or near a radiator perhaps and cover it with a tea towel.

8. When the bread rises to the top of the tin, remove the tea towel and put the loaf into the oven for 50-60 minutes or until it looks nicely browned and sounds hollow when tapped.

9. The bread will rise a little further in the oven —this is called ‘oven spring’. If, however, the bread rises to the top of the tin before it goes into the oven, it’ll continue to rise and flow over the edges.

10. We usually remove the loaf from the tin about 10 minutes before the end of cooking and put it back into the oven to crisp all round.