We confess to scoring a half-cup of instant yeast last week when we were walking past our ‶sales-by-pickup-only″ neighborhood butcher shop, Savenor’s. (Yes, the one where Julia Child bought her chicken, ducks, and breast of veal.) That should keep us going until we’re out of flour. But a lot of folks aren’t so lucky, so we’d thought we’d post one of the all-time great bread recipes that doesn’t require yeast.

It’s for an Irish brown soda bread, as served on the breakfast buffet at the Marker Hotel in the hip Docklands district of Dublin, Ireland.

Seeds in brown bread are nothing new, though the classic recipes only call for oat groats to add texture. This version adds the perfect balance of sesame, sunflower, and flax seeds to make the loaf interesting. It’s from Rey Hortillosa, pastry chef at The Marker, and we made only slight adjustments for North American ingredients. He provided the recipe in metric measures, and we recommend that you weigh everything with a gram scale. (Weighing the ingredients is often a key to success in baking, as it eliminates the influence of relative humidity.) For readers in a hurry or those without a kitchen scale, we’ve added North American volume measurements. The seeds can be omitted if you don’t have them, but the oat groats—aka ‶old-fashioned Irish oatmeal″—are essential.

IRISH BROWN BREAD

Ingredients

250 grams (1 3/4 cup) whole wheat flour
250 grams (1 3/4 cup) all-purpose white flour
8 grams (scant 1 1/2 teaspoons) salt
20 grams (4 teaspoons) baking soda
50 grams (1/4 cup) brown sugar
75 grams (1/3 cup + 2 tablespoons) oat groats
1 tablespoon flax seeds
1 tablespoon sunflower seeds
1 tablespoon sesame seeds
560 ml (19 fl. oz) buttermilk

Directions

Set oven at 325°F (160°C). Thoroughly grease a large bread loaf pan (9″x5″).

Mix all dry ingredients by hand in a bowl. Add buttermilk and mix by hand until the dough is uniformly wet and sticky. Place dough in loaf pan, being careful not to trap any pockets of air.

Bake 50-60 minutes, until top is brown.

Remove from oven and carefully remove from pan, placing loaf on wire rack to cool. To avoid gummy bread, resist the temptation to cut a slice for at least 10 minutes—or preferably until cool. You can always toast the slice for that warm-from-the-oven flavor.