Farmhouse milk bread

Pan, barrel, cobb, bloomer, brown, batch, granary, rolled, basket, milk. These are all names of beautiful breads that you will find in any Irish market or bakery on any given day, and all names of breads that totally eluded me upon moving to Ireland. Milk bread in particular sounded appealing to me. I stumbled upon a loaf a couple of years back and gave it a try, loved it, asked some friends if they knew what it was (no), then somehow forgot all about it. After rooting around for a few weeks, I discovered the farm recipe for an old-fashioned milk bread and couldn’t wait to give it a try. The recipe didn’t work so well, so I adjusted some measurements, added more milk and used strong (baker’s) flour instead of all-purpose (plain) and out came the softest, whitest loaf this side of the snow-capped Alps.