irish soda bread

this is my fourth or fifth attempt. each one has been quite different, but today's loaves are the first that made me say an honest 'yum!'.

you need a coffee grinder to grind whole grains of wheat down to a coarse flour. also, instead of buttermilk, which i never have, i add 1 T of vinegar to a cup of milk for a cup of buttermilk.

4/5 cup coarsely ground whole wheat kernels
4/5 cup whole wheat flour
2 2/5 cups of white flour
2 T bran
1 t salt
1 heaping t baking soda

1 1/2 cups (roughly) of buttermilk
1 egg
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup melted butter

don't over mix. stir dry ingredients together, then pour the wet ingredients into a well in the center. gently form into a rougly formed loaf/ball. place the dough on a floured cookie sheet and cut with a cross almost all the way through (not sure why--today i skipped this and just made two smaller loaves because that's what the dough seemed to be doing). bake at 450 F for 30 minutes. I find that it gets too crusty, so half way through, put a sheet of foil over the loaf.

the blessing/curse of this loaf is that you can't cut thin slices. coarse, thick, crumbly slices slathered with butter and jam. mmm.

p.s. today i also ground flax seed (maybe 1/8 cup) in the coffee grinder and added that. the seeds turn into a yellowish pasty powder. but it's supposed to be nutritious, right?