Adventures in Baking – Beer Bread

Do you remember when I mentioned in my post last weekend that my mom, grandma, and aunt had given me an allergy-friendly baking cookbook and it had really inspired me to do some baking? Well, I wasn’t joking around!

In the last two weekends, I have made a loaf of bread, two batches of muffins (30 muffins in total), and a batch of cinnamon rolls.

I am very excited to tell you about all of them, but for today, I will focus on the bread…

This bread is incredibly easy to make. The yeast from the beer eliminates the need for any additional yeast, and there is no kneading or rising. Just mixing and baking.

Note: The alcohol cooks out of this bread, so if you are feeding it to your children, this is a good thing. If you are a college student, you may consider this alcohol abuse and prefer to save every drop for drinking.

Easy as Beer, Bread

Easy as Beer, Bread

Adapted from ‘The Allergen-Free Baker’s Handbook’ (Gluten-Free-Beer Bread)

Serves: about 6-8 people as a side, or in our case, it fed two of us for most of the day.

Ingredients:

3 cups plain flour

12 oz (approximately 350 mL) beer

2 tbsp granulated sugar

2 tbsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

2 tbsp non-dairy butter spread (or butter)

Instructions

Pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees F. (My oven was set to 170 degrees C, but it is fan-assisted, so if your oven is not, then I would suggest about 185 degrees C).

Use canola oil or butter spread to grease a loaf pan (or, since I didn’t have a loaf pan, I used a round casserole dish).

Combine the flour, beer, and sugar in a large bowl. Let this mixture rest until the oven is heated.

Once the oven is heated, add the baking powder and salt. Mix well, then transfer the dough to the loaf pan (or casserole dish). Melt the butter spread for about 1 minute in the microwave. Brush most of the mixture over the top of the loaf with a pastry brush.

Bake the bread in the center of the oven for about 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and brush with the remaining butter spread.

Return the bread to the oven for approximately 15 more minutes, or until the bread has a deep golden brown crust and sounds hollow when you tap it on top. Keep an eye on it – your bread may take slightly longer, as our oven seems to cook things faster than recipes suggest.

Let the bread rest in the pan for approximately 5 minutes, then turn the pan over and let the bread cool for another 15 minutes before slicing. I had to use a butter knife to gently go around the edges and coax the bread out of the pan. This may not be necessary if you have a loaf pan, but it worked okay my way too. There was no bread left behind in the pan.

Enjoy with soup, as part of a sandwich, or as a snack all on its own! This bread has such a nice flavor that I didn’t even spread any butter on top.

Last weekend I also made a batch of raspberry jam surprise muffins, based on the recipe here on Daily Garnish.

I used raspberry jam instead of strawberry jelly, but otherwise I followed the recipe exactly. I have made these muffins many times now, and they are one of my favorites. And also very easy!

A muffin recipe and pictures of the cinnamon rolls to follow shortly!

I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend, and I hope it is warmer and less rainy wherever you are. It would not be difficult considering it is very cold and we are being warned of flash floods here today. Oh well. Luckily our flat is not on the ground floor…and this weather certainly increases my motivation to bake!