Beer bread you say? Why yes, yes I do! New Years Eve is traditionally a time when people gather socially and drink in the New Year (who needs to remember what happened at midnight anyway??) so I decided to end 2011 with a new (old) recipe.
What you’ll need: a big ol bowl, a wooden spoon, a liquid measure cup, dry measure cups, measure spoons, loaf pans
Ingredients:
- 3 cups AP Flour
- 4 tsp baking powder
- 2 tsp salt
- 1 1/2 cups grated cheddar cheese
- 1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese
- 1 tbsp flaked parsley
- 1 1/2 cup beer (I used Alexander Keiths White Ale)
- 1 tbsp honey
What you do:
- Combine your flour, baking powder, salt, cheese and parsley in your bowl.
- Stir in beer and honey until just mixed.
- Knead dough lightly with your hands until you form a ball.
- Press into a well greased pan (or use two smaller loaf pans)
- Bake in a preheated (350F) oven for 45 minutes or until browned and cooked thru (use the toothpick test).
- Turn bread out on a rack to cool completely. Don’t leave it in the pan, you’ll have rock hard bread!
Serve warm with sour cream and of course, good beer!!
CAETS TRICKS:
– The “yeast” agent in this bread is in the beer. Use fresh beer each time, and don’t forget to drink the leftovers!
– The original recipe didn’t specifiy what kind of cheddar to use, so I mixed some marble with some old (basically whatever I had on hand). I also had the thought to include some of my favourite plain goat cheese in it. In reality, you can use whatever kind of cheese you want! I even added more than what was called for because I love really cheesy bread!
– Wait until the bread is mostly cooled before you try and cut into it to serve it. Cut while it’s still hot and the bread will crumble!