Wheaten bread is the everyday loaf of the North: dense, nutty, faintly sweet from the buttermilk, and all the better for a day's rest. Add dates and it turns into something you can serve from breakfast through to a cheeseboard at midnight. Our Stout City & Date Wheaten Bread Mix takes the guesswork out of the baking, so here we're more interested in what to do once the loaf is out of the tin and cool enough to cut.
Before you bake
The mix makes a 1lb loaf and needs four things from your own kitchen: butter, buttermilk, treacle and stout. Quantities and method are on the packet. The treacle and stout are what give the loaf its dark colour and slightly malty depth, so don't be tempted to swap the stout for water.
One other note: wheaten wants a serrated knife and a bit of patience. Cut it warm and it drags. Let it sit an hour and you'll get clean, thick slices that hold whatever you put on them.
1. Salted butter and a strong cup of tea
The purist's answer, and still the best one. Cut the loaf thick, butter it cold so the butter stays in ridges rather than melting away, and add nothing else. The dates do the work. This is the version to make the morning after baking, when the crumb has settled and the sweetness has come forward.
If you want to gild it, a spoonful of honey or a thin scrape of marmalade cuts through the density nicely.
2. With Irish cheese and something sharp
Date wheaten and cheese is the pairing that surprises people. The sweetness plays against a mature cheddar or a blue the same way chutney would, so you can skip the chutney entirely. Build a simple board:
- Thick slices of date wheaten, buttered or plain
- A mature Irish cheddar, and a soft blue if you have one
- Pickled walnuts, cornichons, or a sharp apple sliced thin
- A few extra dates, split and stoned
Toast the slices lightly if the loaf is a few days old. It wakes the whole thing up.
3. Toasted, for breakfast or pudding
Wheaten toasts beautifully because the crumb is tight enough to crisp at the edges while staying soft in the middle. Under the grill rather than in a toaster, so you can watch it.
For breakfast: toasted, buttered, with a poached egg and black pepper. The sweet-savoury thing works far better than it has any right to.
For pudding: toast it, butter it while hot, and serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and a spoonful of warm cream. A shortcut bread-and-butter pudding with about a tenth of the effort.
Keeping the loaf
Wheaten keeps well, which is part of its appeal. Wrapped in a clean tea towel in a bread bin it'll be good for three or four days, and it improves on day two. Don't refrigerate it, as that dries the crumb. It freezes well sliced, so you can pull out a slice at a time for toast.
Two ways to get your hands on one
If you fancy the baking, the Stout City & Date Wheaten Bread Mix makes a 1lb loaf. Just have butter, buttermilk, treacle and stout to hand.
And if you'd rather skip straight to the buttered slice and the cup of tea, we bake it for you. Our Stout City Loaf is the same date wheaten, ready to cut.
