In honor of my pending trip out of country I am posting a favorite recipe of mine… not necessarily because I like to drink a lot or like alcoholic beverages… because I don’t drink (normally), but because my paternal grandmother’s favorite alcoholic beverage was a can of Heineken. I remember the few times I went to the old country and I would see a case of Heineken beer tucked underneath a massive cabinet.
So the last time I went to visit I made a point of baking a loaf of beer bread using a can of Heineken and she ended up sharing the loaf with the family around her.
Originally when I started baking beer bread I did is using the “Tastefully Simple” Beer Bread mix. In addition to the mix you only need:
12 oz. beverage (beer, soda or carbonated juice)
3 Tbsp. butter (optional)
As is my norm when creating / working on recipes, instead of butter I chose to use vegetable oil.
The result was good, but a bit of a cheat… especially since it was a pre-made mix and those are rarely healthy. So eventually I scoured the internet for a recipe that I could bake out of scratch and came across quite a few:
– Food.com
– AllRecipes.com
– FoodNetwork.com
– My Baking Addiction Blog
In the end I decided to try the recipe from My Baking Addiction…
… and the result was just as good as using the mix if not better. In fact when I brought the bread with me one day for the cast of a show I was in… everybody gobbled it up and I barely had a piece to myself. A hit to be sure…
For the recipe and directions:
INGREDIENTS:
3 cups self-rising flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon kosher salt
12 ounces beer {I used Bud Light}
2 tablespoons melted butterDIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.2. Butter an 8×4 inch loaf pan and set aside. In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, salt and beer; mix well. The mixture will be sticky. Pour into the loaf pan and bake for about 55 minutes.
3. At the last three minutes of baking, remove from oven, brush the top of the loaf with the melted butter and return to oven for the final three minutes of baking.
In the end I decided to purchase a smaller loaf pan so I could separate the dough into smaller loaves so I could give away to multiple people and that reduces cooking time by quite a bit… Still good, but having to watch the bread like a hawk while it is baking was NOT fun.
Unfortunately due to the circumstances surrounding my grandmother it would not be wise to bake a loaf of bread for her at this time… perhaps another time would present itself where I would feel the need to bake beer bread again… except this time perhaps with some beer I brought home from the Lehigh Valley area in Pennsylvania: specifically Weyerbachers.