Honey Beer Bread

Original Recipe HERE

 

I do not like beer.  Any kind.  Not even those that claim to be fruity, spicy, or pumpkin-y.  Nothing about it appeals to me.  I am a solid wine lady for life (though in my past life, I was a [multiple] vodka-and-cranberry lady...but those are stories for another time).  However, I know it has its place in cooking. I just never think to use it, despite there always being an ample supply on hand thanks to Husband.

 

But I was making broccoli cheese soup and wanted some sort of bread product to accompany it.  I was going to make my standard pizza dough recipe and let the kids make "snakes" out of it, brush them with melted butter/garlic powder/Parmesan, and hope it turned out well.  That recipe will (also) have to wait for another time.  Because I looked in my bookmarks and came across this one.  A five-minute prep time, then forget it for an hour?  Sign me up, especially since the kids were happy amusing themselves with making Halloween decorations and I didn't want to rock the boat.

This turned out awesomely.  There is a slight beer taste, but it wasn't offensive to me.  The darker the beer, the better...or so says all the recipes I read.  I used a random Red Hook ESB, which I knew nothing about.  I think there was a little too much butter (we all had greasy fingers at the end), so I decreased the amount a little below.  Hopefully the perfectly crusty crust (is it OK to use the same word to describe the same word?) would still result.  I served this with herbed garlic butter, and we all gobbled it up.

 

Next time I will add some shredded cheddar and dried dill, but since the soup was already cheesy enough, I skipped it this time.

 

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup bread flour

1 Tablespoon baking powder

1 Tablespoon white sugar

1 teaspoon salt

3 Tablespoons honey (warmed if necessary)

1 (12 oz) beer (darker is better)

3 Tablespoons butter, melted & slightly cooled

 

Directions

(1) Preheat oven to 350 F.  Grease a 9x5" bread pan.

(2) In a large bowl, whisk together flours, sugar, baking powder, and salt.

(3) Add honey; stir with rubber spatula until well combined.

(4) Add beer; stir until no dry flour is visible.

(5) Pour batter into loaf pan.  Spread so top is flat.

(6) Pour melted butter evenly over entire surface.

(7) Bake until bread is golden brown and a knife inserted in the center comes out clean, approximately 50 to 60 minutes.

(8) Turn bread out onto cooling rack.  Slice when room temperature.

 

Kid Participation:

* Stir dry ingredients

* Pour and stir beer

* Wonder why they are allowed to consume beer, regardless of the form it takes