Treacle bread is a type of bread that uses molasses as a sweetener and flavoring. It can be made with various ingredients, including ginger, and is often mixed with milk or cream to help integrate the thick syrup into the dough. Treacle bread can be sweet and heavy, and is often baked with nuts or dried fruits. The use of molasses in bread originated from the lack of other sweeteners, and many recipes have evolved over time to include both sugar and molasses.
“Treacle bread” can be any of several flour-based breads that use the molasses-like syrup known as molasses as a flavoring and sweetener. There are recipes for treacle bread in Irish cooking that are very similar to soda bread. Other recipes use molasses in combination with ingredients like brown sugar and cream to create a sweet, somewhat heavy loaf of yeast bread. One ingredient found in a large number of treacle bread recipes is ginger, because its sharp, distinctive taste accentuates the deeper, richer flavor of molasses. The texture that using a certain amount of molasses gives to bread is another reason it is sometimes used, giving otherwise hard or dry breads a slightly softer, chewier texture.
The use of molasses as a sweetener in treacle bread originated mainly from the lack of other types of sweeteners. Before refined white sugar became relatively inexpensive and widely available, sweetening bread in some areas was limited to the use of molasses, honey, or other natural syrups. Compared to refined white sugar, molasses has a fairly mild amount of sweetness, and many recipes have evolved over time to include both sugar and molasses to increase the sweetness of the bread, so it’s more in line with expectations of how bread sweet cooked should taste.
Molasses is almost never added to bread dough without first being heated a bit and then mixed with another liquid. Most often, milk or cream is used as the liquid used to help integrate the thick syrup into dry flour and other ingredients, although water or stout may also be used, depending on the recipe. One reason this is often necessary is that the thickness of the molasses can easily cause the flour to clump together and make kneading or bread dough very difficult, if not impossible. It should also be noted that the amount of molasses usually added to treacle bread is generally not enough to serve as the recipe’s primary liquid, meaning that another liquid is also needed to help distribute the small amount of molasses evenly through the dough. .
A very simple and traditional recipe for treacle bread that is similar to Irish soda bread involves mixing the molasses with milk first. This liquid is then added to a mixture of sugar, flour, baking soda and a small amount of ginger. The dough is mixed, kneaded to the desired consistency, and then baked. The resulting loaf is sweet with a deep, molasses-like flavor that is cut by the taste of the ginger.
Other treacle breads resemble standard flour-based white bread with a small amount of molasses added to the dough. The resulting loaf is sweet, so it’s not uncommon to find walnuts, almonds, or pecans baked into the bread. Dried fruits such as raisins, blueberries and dates can also be included to complement the sweetness of the bread.
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