New taste in traditional Irish wheaten bread for Christmas

Creative bakery Amazin' Grazin' in Northern Ireland has launched a new bread specially for the festive season. The small bakery, which is based at Portstewart in county Derry, has used its successful expertise in wheaten - or brown soda - breads to come up with a novel Cranberry and Walnut loaf for Christmas.

Home baker, Lynne Gardiner, who founded the artisan business in 2016, says developing the new wheaten bread for Christmas made "good sense". "Christmas is a time when people use traditional Northern Irish wheaten bread with a range of meals such as soup and smoked salmon.

"I thought I'd use the traditional festival cranberries and walnuts with wheaten bread to create a really festive loaf that has a delicious fruity and nutty flavour. And it's proving an immensely popular development with shoppers."

The enterprising baker has developed a reputation for producing different versions of traditional wheaten bread, including the first gluten-free version and an Irish Whiskey Wheaten bread.

As well as the gluten-free and whiskey versions, she has also extended the range of the traditional Irish breads by developing wheaten with date and apple, Guinness and treacle, and cheese.

She has also produced a beer wheaten using Rathlin Red Ale, a local craft ale from Ballycastle in county Antrim.

Amazin' Grazin' wheaten breads are all handmade and retail at around £4/£5. A baker by trade who has managed restaurants in Portstewart, she created the artisan bakery business as a part-time enterprise. The yeast-free bread is baked with wholemeal flour, bicarbonate of soda, caster sugar, buttermilk, baking powder and a pinch of salt and has long been associated with Northern Ireland.