Margo’s Brown Bread
Shared by Clodagh · 5 October 2026
The story behind the recipe
Some recipes are much more than recipes and this is one of them. It’s so simple but it carries memories, family and a sense of home with it. My mother Margo is 82 and when she was a child, her mother would bake this bread for the family. In those days the buttermilk was made at home too, hand churning butter and the bread was always on the table with eggs, jam, butter, stew. My mother learned the recipe from her mother and I like to imagine that her mother had learned it from hers. The exact origin lost to time but what has remained is the bread itself, passed quietly from one generation to the next. For as long as I can remember, the smell of this brown bread has been part of life. It’s become Margo’s bread and everyone associates her with it. I now bake her bread and I really hope my 4 daughters will too. The recipe is simple but what it holds is not, it’s generations of mothers caring for their families. It’s tradition, it’s comfort, it’s welcome, it’s love. It’s also delicious!
- Clodagh
Ingredients
3 Cups of Self Raising Flour 1 cup of wholemeal 1 cup of bran 1/2 teaspoon of bread soda 1 teaspoon of salt 1 egg Just over 1/2 pint of buttermilk
Method
Preheat Oven to 160 Add flour to big bowl, sieve in bread soda. Add salt. Whisk egg in a cup. Add in your wholemeal and bran and mix well. Add your whisked egg. Add buttermilk and mix well with a wooden spoon. Knead well and shape your bread into a big round piece. Add flour to knead where needed. Flour your tray and place it onto tray, flatten a bit and lightly cross it with a knife- don’t go drop- just skim across and make an x. Bake on a flat tray middle shelf for 40 mins at 180. When baked tap the bottom and should sound hollow. Wrap in a clean tea towel and leave upright to cool. Happy Baking.
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