This Authentic Belfast Bap Recipe will make about six oven fresh, soft floury bread rolls. Following the instructions, including the Tip From Me will guarantee success when making these beauties.
A Belfast Bap is known for its almost burned, slightly cracked crust, with a fine dusting of rice flour to help harden the crust.
Growing up in Ireland, every meal included bread and butter. If we were lucky, the bread of choice was a traditional Belfast Bap or two!
What is a Belfast Bap
I’ll start by explaining first of all what a bap is in Ireland. A bap is a small bread roll. A bap always has a soft interior with a soft or hard crust. Americans would call this a ‘bun’.
A Belfast Bap is a bread roll with a distinctively dark, slightly charred yielding crust and a soft middle. If you ask for a bap in a bakery in N. Ireland, you will not get a Belfast Bap. Be sure to ask for it by name.
Smaller than a loaf of bread but bigger than a bread roll, a Belfast Bap is the ideal size for a hearty, well-filled breakfast sandwich! Nearly double the size of a standard roll, this extra space allows for a variety of fillings, with bacon, egg, and sausage topping the list as the most popular choice.(Here are recipes for traditional Back Bacon and Irish Sausages).
Belfast Bap sandwiches are N. Ireland’s version of street food, found in cafes, chippys and markets throughout the area. The Belfast Bap Co. and Belfast Breakfast Baps sell all sorts of filled bread rolls. Be sure to pay them a visit if you are in the Belfast area!
My Granny relied on these wee loaves to feed her family back in the day. Life was tough in and around Belfast, particularly around Sailortown and the Shipyard (where the Titanic was built). Even when her family grew up and moved out, Belfast Baps continued to be a staple in her home. Then when she became a widow, they were just the right size to last her two days.
Growing up 5 miles away from Belfast, Belfast Baps were served frequently in our house. It always meant stew was on the menu!
Belfast Bap History
We owe the creation of The Belfast Bap to the legendary master baker Barney Hughes. Born in Armagh, Hughes moved to Belfast in his teens to apprentice as a baker. Soon after the famine broke out in 1885. He saw the need to help feed the poor of Belfast. Practical necessity and a deep sense of social responsibility lead Hughes to produce a smaller loaf of bread at a lesser price. This small loaf was given the name Bap – ‘Bread at Affordable Prices’.
Some historians even attribute Hughes’ creation of the Belfast Bap with saving the people of Belfast. Belfast’s city dwellers faired better than rural inhabitants during the famine years of 1845-1852. The additional saving grace of an affordable staple like bread, led Belfast to become one of the greatest industrial centers of the Empire.
Ingredients
- Bread flour: preferably not bleached and not enriched. Strong flour is the Irish /UK term. All purpose flour (plain flour) can be substituted, but add some vital wheat gluten to the flour to increase the gluten content.
- Yeast: fresh yeast or active dry yeast.
- Sugar: white, granulated sugar.
- Salt: I used Celtic (not pictured.)
- Rice Flour: do not omit, it helps the crust to crack. Scroll down to the ‘A Tip From Me’ for instructions how to make it.
Making and Proofing the Bread Dough
This is an easy recipe for bread. Just follow the instructions!
Yeast and sugar go into a bowl. I used the bowl of the stand mixer. Warm water (around 90-100 deg F. / 32-37 deg C.) is added and the ingredients are mixed well.
Leave the yeasty water in a warm place to proof for 10 minutes. The water will be bubbly when its done.
Attach the bowl of yeasty water to the stand mixer. Add half the flour and mix. Use the dough hook attachment. Gradually add in the remaining flour bit by bit.
Add salt in with the last amount of flour.
Now knead the dough for about 20 minutes. This helps to develop the gluten.
Transfer the dough into an oiled bowl.
Cover the dough with a clean cloth and place in a warm area to proof for 2 hours.
The dough will increase to about double its size.
Forming and Baking the Bread Rolls
Weigh the dough and divide evenly into 6 pieces.
Use the pinching method by pulling two edges of the dough piece towards the center. Gently pinch them together. Turn the dough 90 degrees and repeat this pinching process. Continue until a round shape is formed on the underside. Turn the dough over. Cup the dough in one hand and gently roll and push the dough. This will fuse the seams on the underside and create a nice smooth, tight ball.
Place the 6 Baps onto a paper lined baking sheet. Allow them to rest (sit and proof) for 20 minutes in a warm area.
Gently dust each Bap with rice flour.
Place the Baps into a preheated 425 degrees F. / 232 degrees C. oven. Place a metal baking sheet on the oven shelf under the bread. Fill this sheet pan with hot water.
Bake in the oven for about 20 -25 minutes. Squeeze the Baps and judge if they feel doughy or soft in the center. If doughy bake longer. Place the Baps under a preheated broiler (grill) for a few minutes to brown / blacken the tops of the Baps. Remove and cool the Baps on a wire rack.
Fillings for Belfast Baps
When Belfast Baps first came onto the scene, they were, for some, the only food available to eat. Nowadays, people often serve Belfast Baps filled with delicious and interesting fillings.
Commonly used Belfast Bap fillings include:
- the traditional eggs, bacon and sausage. Go full on and fill it with Ulster Fry ingredients.
- Crisps (chips in the U.S.), namely locally produced Tayto cheese and onion, are often inserted inside a well buttered Belfast Bap.
- A sandwich using Sausage rolls, as a Belfast Bap filling is sometimes known as a double decker.
- A chippy / chipper (fish and chip shops) will often offer a battered pastie; served with chips (fries.)
- A little fancier is using sausage and cheese as a filling and topping it with a chutney like this Onion Chutney.
- Some market vendors offer full meals within the pieces of bread. Sunday roasts and turkey with all the trimmings are huge hits with consumers! Menus showing Belfast Baps with ‘Titanic’ or ‘Cave Hill’ in the names, continue to connect the Bap to Belfast’s history and landmarks.
Speaking of size, because the Belfast Bap is almost double the size of a standard bread roll, it makes a giant sized sandwich, fit for a giant, like Finn McCool (a giant from Irish mythology.) I would love to see him sink his teeth into one of these gigantic sandwiches.
Signature Cracking of the Crust
Turn volume on!
The hot water placed under the bread rolls as they were baking, provided steam and hardened the crust. When the Baps are removed from the oven, they crack as they adjust to the cooler room temperature.
A Tip From Me
Try not to skip the use of rice flour in this recipe. It produces a harder crust. If rice flour is not available or you choose not to purchase it, make some homemade rice flour. Add some uncooked rice to a coffee or spice grinder. Grind for about 30 – 60 seconds until a flour (dust) is formed. Then pass this flour through a fine mesh sieve.
A metal pan (or pyrex dish if a metal pan is unavailable) containing hot water (straight out of the kettle) should be placed in the oven, below the Belfast Baps during baking. This will create steam that in turn helps harden the crust.
Uses for Belfast Bap
Smash burgers (a thin, flat patty cooked in a pan or flat top to produce crispy, caramelized edges) also work well using a Belfast Bap as a burger bun.
Besides making monstrously big sandwiches, the Belfast Bap is seriously the best bread for dipping into soup and stew.
The Belfast Bap is the ideal roll to use when making a French dip (thinly sliced or shredded beef in a crusty roll served with a dish of jus (beef juices or stock)). This one has a generous amount of melted Dubliner cheddar.
Got Questions?
I’ve got answers – hopefully!
A bap in this context refers to a person’s head. “Mind your bap” means watch your head. Sometimes a person with red hair is called a ‘ginger bap’. Although usually said in jest, this term can be hurtful.
Belfast Baps can be bought in home bakeries and even some supermarkets in and around Belfast. A Belfast Bap sandwich can be found at street markets especially St George’s Market in Belfast.
Authentic Belfast Bap
Equipment
Ingredients
- 2.2 lbs bread flour (strong flour)
- 2 tbsp active dry yeast (3 packets) if using fresh yeast, use 2oz.
- 20 oz warm water (90-100℉ / 32-38℃) 2½ cups
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp rice flour
Instructions
Making and Proofing the Bread Dough.
- Yeast and sugar go into a bowl. Warm water is added, mix well.2 tbsp active dry yeast (3 packets), 1 tbsp sugar
- Leave the yeasty water in a warm place to proof for 10 minutes.
- Using a stand mixer with a dough hook attachment, mix in half the flour. Gradually add in the remaining flour bit by bit.2.2 lbs bread flour
- Add salt in with the last amount of flour.2 tsp salt
- Now knead the dough for about 20 minutes. This helps to develop the gluten.
- Transfer the dough into an oiled bowl. Cover the bowl with a clean cloth and place in a warm area to proof for 2 hours.
Forming and Baking the Bread Rolls
- Weigh the dough and divide evenly into 6 pieces.
- Pull two edges of a dough piece towards the center. Gently pinch them together. Turn the dough 90 degrees and repeat this pinching process. Continue until a round shape is formed on the underside. Turn the dough over. Cup the dough in one hand and gently roll and push the dough. This will fuse the seams on the underside and create a nice smooth, tight ball.
- Place the 6 Baps onto a paper lined baking sheet. Allow them to rest (sit and proof) for 20 minutes in a warm area.
- Gently dust each Bap with rice flour.1 tsp rice flour
- Place the Baps into a preheated 425 degrees F. / 232 degrees C. oven. Place a metal baking sheet on an oven shelf under the bread. Fill this sheet pan with hot water.
- Bake in the oven for about 20 -25 minutes. Squeeze the Baps and judge if they feel doughy or soft in the center. If doughy bake longer. Place the Baps under a preheated broiler (grill) for a few minutes to brown / blacken the tops of the Baps. Remove and cool the Baps on a wire rack.
Notes
- A dusting of rice flour. Buy it or make your own. To make your own, add some uncooked rice to a coffee or spice grinder. Grind for about 30 – 60 seconds until a flour (dust) is formed. Then pass this flour through a fine mesh sieve.
- A metal pan (or pyrex dish if a metal pan is unavailable) containing hot water (straight out of the kettle) should be placed on the oven shelf below the Belfast Baps during baking. This will create steam, that in turn helps harden the crust.
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