{"id":627898,"date":"2026-09-17T22:04:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T22:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/627898\/"},"modified":"2026-09-17T22:04:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T22:04:11","slug":"baker-at-ploughing-championships-reveals-secret-to-prize-winning-brown-bread-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/627898\/","title":{"rendered":"Baker at Ploughing Championships reveals secret to prize-winning brown bread \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The secret to prize-winning brown bread? Guinness with honey and treacle, according to Olivia Nash, the newly crowned winner of the National Brown Bread Baking Competition for 2026.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s quite sweet and it\u2019s quite dense but I think that could be it,\u201d says Nash, from Tallaght in Dublin. \u201cI use honey and treacle because my husband hates dry bread. He constantly gives out about it so mine is really really moist.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nash\u2019s loaf beat off competition from more than 400 other bakers to reach the final stage of the contest at the National Ploughing Championships<\/a> in Screggan, Co Offaly<\/a> on Thursday. She faced three other competitors at the final event, cheered on by her seven-month-old daughter Mabel, otherwise known as her \u201clucky charm\u201d.<\/p>\n

Nash says she created and tweaked her bread recipe over the years, developing it to suit her husband Colin Hassett\u2019s tastes. She posts her bread-making efforts on her popular @beingolivianash Instagram account, where she describes herself as a \u201cproud sourdough starter mom\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cI use Guinness in my brown bread, I always have and I probably always will. My husband loves the end of a can of Guinness so it\u2019s a big favourite on a Sunday afternoon in our house. He actually encouraged me to enter it, so I am glad that he did,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

Nash also credits Mabel, who woke her up at 4am on the day of the first round of brown bread entries.<\/p>\n

\"OliviaOlivia Nash from Dublin with her daughter Mabel after winning the final of the Brown Bread Baking Competition on the third day of the National Ploughing Championships in Tullamore, Co Offaly. Photograph: Alan Betson \/ The Irish Times <\/p>\n

As winner, Nash will receive a \u20ac5,000 cash prize and a Neff \u201cslide and hide\u201d oven, the model which is used by contestants in The Great British Bake Off. <\/p>\n

The junior brown bread winner on Thursday was fellow Dubliner Cara Wall who used her grandmother\u2019s recipe and bagged a \u20ac1,500 Euronics voucher for herself and a further \u20ac1,500 voucher for her school. <\/p>\n

\"OliviaOlivia Nash and Cara Wall from Dublin, winners of the Senior and Junior finals of the Brown Bread Baking Competition on the third day of the National Ploughing Championships in Tullamore, Co Offaly. Photograph: Alan Betson \/ The Irish Times
\n \"JudgingJudging the finals of the Brown Bread baking competition on the 3rd day of the National Ploughing Championships at Tullamore, Co Offaly. Photograph: Alan Betson \/ The Irish Times<\/p>\n

The National Brown Bread Baking Competition began in 1954, while the junior component launched in 2025. <\/p>\n

When the Ploughing Championships kicked off on Tuesday, there were 16 finalists; eight junior and eight senior. This group was then whittled down to Thursday\u2019s final four after Tuesday and Wednesday\u2019s semi-finals. <\/p>\n

Chef Eleanor Martin, Thelma Burke from the Irish Countrywomen\u2019s Association and 1973 brown bread champion Eileen Brennan comprised the judging panel for this year\u2019s competition and sampled some 450 loaves of brown bread. <\/p>\n

\"TheThe Brown Bread Baking Competition on the third day of the National Ploughing Championships in Tullamore, Co Offaly. Photograph: Alan Betson \/ The Irish Times \"BrownBrown bread in the oven during the finals of the Brown Bread Making Competition on the third day of the National Ploughing Championships. Photograph: Alan Betson \/ The Irish Times <\/p>\n

Martin said that while she does not tire of brown bread, on qualification day where judges select the finalists, tasters can risk palate fatigue. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou only taste a tiny amount and you don\u2019t have any dinner then that night,\u201d she says, before adding that to avoid a tired palate, judges \u201chave water all the way through\u201d. <\/p>\n

Not every loaf has to be eaten according to Martin: \u201cIt is very clear straight away if there\u2019s something really good\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou cut them and you know you are not going to taste that because it is not cooked.\u201d<\/p>\n

The qualification process is only for five of the eight brown bread finalists, as three places are allocated to the Irish Countrywomen\u2019s Association which is made up of 440 guilds. <\/p>\n

Martin says that, while judging, it\u2019s important to honour \u201cthe tradition of a good brown bread, but also texture and flavour\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan we cut it? It must look good as well. Sometimes you cut it and it just falls to pieces and that is impractical. It is a bread and it needs to hold together.\u201d <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Ploughing final day: Tight security, potato headshots and \u2018situationship\u2019 matchmakingOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The secret to prize-winning brown bread? Guinness with honey and treacle, according to Olivia Nash, the newly crowned…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":627899,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[11976,615,93,61,60,8286,13356],"class_list":["post-627898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-national-ploughing-championships","tag-dublin","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-offaly","tag-tallaght"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=627898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/627899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}