Karen O'Donoghue's Digestible Brown Bread

1. Gather and prepare your ingredients.

2. Place the flours, porridge oats, wheat bran and salt into a mixing bowl. Whisk to remove any lumps.

3. Place the egg, buttermilk and treacle into another bowl and whisk to combine.

4. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and stir to incorporate. Cover the bowl and leave to soak overnight, or for at least 8 hours. Cover either with clingfilm, a large plate or a clean tea towel.

5. The next day (or 8 hours later), preheat your oven to 190°C/170°C fan. Line a 2lb loaf pan with greaseproof paper. If your tin isn’t dependably greaseproof, brush it with some olive oil before lining it with the paper. You can scatter some oats or seeds on the bottom for texture if you like.

6. Sprinkle over the bicarbonate of soda and stir to combine. Scrape into your prepared loaf tin.

7. Bake for 1 hour. Then carefully remove the loaf from the tin and place back into the oven to cook for a further 20 minutes. To test doneness, knock the bottom of the loaf. When fully cooked it will sound hollow.

8. Allow to cool on a wire rack before slicing.