Brown Bread (Annotated)

Ruth Halliday's brown bread, copied out for the new girl at the inn, with the notes I do not put on the card I hand the guests.

3 cups wholemeal, 1 cup white, a quarter cup molasses (the real kind, not the polite kind), 2 cups buttermilk, 1.5 tsp soda, 1 tsp salt. That is the whole recipe. People want it to be more complicated so they have a reason theirs did not work.

Note: do not overwork it. Brown bread is not a dough you fight. You bring it together and you leave it be. I have learned that lesson in more than one part of my life and only very recently in the part that counts.

Note: Grant Morse takes two slices, butter to the edges, says almost nothing, and then washes his plate without being asked. That is a thing about a person you cannot fake and cannot teach. I have started making a smaller loaf more often instead of one big one on Sundays and I am not going to write down why. The new girl does not need that note. I am leaving it in anyway.

Bake at 190 until it sounds hollow underneath. You will learn the sound. You learn all the sounds that matter eventually, if you are paying attention, which I recommend.