Irish Potato Bread (Boxty Bread) – Traditional Irish Recipe

Let's start with a simple recipe: Irish potato bread, also known as boxty bread, a humble staple of Irish cooking.

Don't expect a loaf like the bread we are used to in Italy: tall, soft and airy. This one is decidedly flat, dense and moist, with a strong potato flavour. When you take it out of the oven, you might even think it looks hopelessly undercooked, despite having baked it for longer than expected.

Please give it a chance! Cut a slice in half, toast it lightly in a frying pan, spread it with slightly salted butter and add a generous slice of good-quality smoked salmon. You may well change your mind about this unassuming little loaf.

This recipe comes from Paul Hollywood's British Baking, a book full of inspiration for anyone interested in British baking and traditional recipes.

You can find the book here: Paul Hollywood's British Baking by Paul Hollywood on Amazon.

An Irish-Inspired Brinner

I served this bread as part of a late-afternoon feast that turned into dinner, with an Irish theme. There was boxty bread with slightly salted French butter, complete with little flakes of sea salt, smoked salmon and smoked cod. The cod had a very strong flavour and, to be honest, wasn't a great success with us!

We also had a delicious bacon and egg pie, with a golden crust, pastry cooked perfectly even underneath, a generous but not overly heavy filling, and wonderfully tender pork loin.

Then there were miniature scones with spring onions and cheese. The original recipe called for mature Cheddar, but since I couldn't find it locally, I used Parmesan instead.

For something sweet, I made buttery shortbread biscuits with a rustic, grainy texture from semolina, filled with a ganache of white chocolate, cream and Irish whiskey.

The children had their own little picnic on the large lawn inside our courtyard, with toast and chocolate salami. Not particularly Irish, perhaps, but very much appreciated!

What exactly is a brinner? It's a meal somewhere between lunch and dinner: the evening version of brunch. You could call it a substantial late-afternoon meal, a little like an Italian apericena, but let's give it an Anglo-Saxon twist and make it a proper feast.

Does the word brinner sound as dreadful to you as apericena does to me? At least we're in good company!

Now, let's get back to the recipe.

Irish Potato Bread (Boxty Bread)

Yield: 4 servings
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 40–50 minutes

Ingredients

• 200 g raw floury potatoes

• 200 g boiled and mashed floury potatoes

• 200 g self-raising flour

• 1 teaspoon fine salt

• 30 g lard or butter

• 75 ml milk, approximately

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F). Finely grate the raw potatoes, place them in a clean tea towel and squeeze firmly to remove as much liquid as possible.

2. Put the grated potatoes, mashed potatoes, self-raising flour, salt and lard or butter into a bowl. Gradually add the milk, mixing until you have a sticky but firm dough. You may not need all the milk.

3. Shape the dough into a round loaf and place it on a baking tray lined with parchment paper.

4. Cut a deep cross into the top of the loaf, dividing it into four sections.

5. Bake for 40–50 minutes, until the bread is a deep golden brown and cooked through.

6. Serve warm, or cut the loaf in half horizontally and toast the pieces in a frying pan before serving with salted butter and smoked salmon.

Notes

• Texture: This is a dense, moist potato bread, not a light, airy loaf. Its texture is part of its character.

• The best way to serve it: Toasting the bread in a pan brings out its flavour and gives the surface a delicious crispness. Salted butter and good-quality smoked salmon make a particularly lovely combination.

• Potatoes: Floury potatoes are best for this recipe because they produce a drier, more suitable texture.