These Irish brown bread muffins have all the flavor of the traditional Irish brown bread in muffin form. Add the optional candied ginger for a nice subtle texture and bite.
For someone who doesn’t really care about St. Patrick’s Day I’m kinda pumping out a lot of “Irish” recipes this year (like this no-bake Irish Cream cheesecake) huh?
In reality though, I’ve wanted to make brown bread since visiting Ireland almost 4 years ago.
I went into that trip expecting horrible food and disgusting weather.
The weather prediction held true (to the point of almost literally being blown off the Cliffs of Moher by 50 mile an hour winds) but the food was surprisingly good throughout the trip.
Way better than Prague, Budapest and Munich were last year (sausage, salt, sausage, salt, sausage, salt, potatoes, repeat) at least.
We ate brown bread at literally every restaurant we went to it seemed and it was always served with the best butter packets you could imagine.
I’m not normally one to rip open butter packets in a restaurant (in fact, if it’s a restaurant that serves bread with “butter packets” I’m probably skipping that bread altogether).
But, the ones in Ireland were creamy, just slightly salty and slathered on warm brown bread…yeah, I could eat that alone for my meal.
So good.
This brown bread recipe turned into muffins out of both laziness (my favorite loaf pan was being occupied by homemade ice cream in the freezer) and the desire to hopefully keep myself in check with portion control.
I have a slight problem when there’s an entire loaf of something in front of me.
It’s called the “I’ll just have a sliver more” syndrome and it usually results in eating a quarter of said loaf (in 5 1/8 inch thick slices) at a time.
For the most part, it worked.
Although, there was a morning when 2 of these made their way onto my breakfast plate.
I added just a touch of candied ginger to this batch and while it’s not traditional, I really think you should too.
It gives the brown bread muffins an added bit of chew and texture while bringing just a hint of spice to each bite.
Spice and Irish aren’t really synonymous, but just go with it, trust me.
And with that, the Irish recipes are done for this year and maybe I can finally go back on Pinterest without having fake green dips, cupcakes and cookies thrown in my face making me want to gag.
If I do green food, it’s pretty much only my green oatmeal or green spinach pancakes – both food coloring free!
Love these Brown Bread Muffins?
Try one of these other muffin recipes too: Whole Wheat Sweet Potato Banana Muffins, Apple Fritter Muffins or, Carrot raisin everything muffins.
Or try pairing the brown bread muffins with one of these soups, stews or chili:
Kabocha Squash Chili
Creamy Coconut Delicata Squash Soup
Slow Cooker Lamb Stew
Creamy Garlic Brussels Sprout Soup
Spicy Porter Short Rib Chili
Irish Brown Bread Muffins
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
- 2 cups oat flour, coarsely ground oats
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 2 tablespoons cold butter, chopped
- 1 3/4 cups buttermilk
- 1 egg
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 2 tablespoons chopped candied ginger, *optional
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees and grease a muffin tin with baking spray.
- Sift whole wheat pastry flour, salt and baking soda into a large bowl.
- Add the oat flour to the bowl and mix together.
- Add the butter to the bowl and combine with the flour using your fingers or the back of a fork until thoroughly incorporated.
- Whisk together the buttermilk, egg and honey in a separate bowl.
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir until just combined.
- Fold in the candied ginger if using.
- Spoon the batter into the muffin tins and bake for about 20 minutes.
- Remove from oven, let cool a few minutes in the tin before transferring to a cooling rack.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Gina Matsoukas is an AP syndicated writer. She is the founder, photographer and recipe developer of Running to the Kitchen — a food website focused on providing healthy, wholesome recipes using fresh and seasonal ingredients. Her work has been featured in numerous media outlets both digital and print, including MSN, Huffington post, Buzzfeed, Women’s Health and Food Network.
This looks incredible! Definitely, trying it this weekend!
The ginger sounds like a wonderful addition! Love that you made them in muffin form. I too have a hard time controlling myself with a warm loaf of bread.
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I didn’t make ANY St.Patrick’s day recipes, except for the corned beef and cabbage that’s in my dutch oven right now, but nothing creative or for the blog. I need to live vicariously through you and your posts…especially these muffins!
The honey and candied ginger is a winning combination! These are delightful. xo, Catherine
you have NO idea how badly I want a few of the right now! I love Irish brown bread – I guess I’ll have to wait til tomorrow :)
These look so good! Art really wants to go to Ireland so I feel we need to make that happen. Mostly because I want an excuse to eat muffins and bread like this every single day.
I kind of forgot St. Paddy’s day was coming up, but I’m all for alllll the carbs all the time!
So jealous of your trip, I’ve always wanted to go there! And such a genius idea to turn this into muffins!
im not too much into st patricks day either but if bread or green beer is involved – im in :)