Beer Bread

Submitted by Toast

Beer Bread is something my mother's old boss used to make for all their summer picnics. The loaves are dense, spicy and easily adaptable for all kinds of variations. For today's batch I'm making two loaves, one with just cheddar cheese and one with cheddar cheese and spicy pepperoni.

In the past I've used just about any type of cheese imaginable, I've added chile peppers, sundried tomato, ham, roasted garlic... pretty much anything.

It makes a really good picnic food, a great accompaniment to soup (I last made it as an accompaniment to Cutty's Beer Cheese Soup or a nice fall bread. The density makes one of two pieces enough for most people.

Preheat

Preheat your oven to 400F

Ingredients

Makes one loaf, pictures are from a doubled recipe.

Base

• 3 Cups Self Raising Flour (aka pastry flour in some locations)
• 3 Heaping Teaspoons of sugar
• 1 Tablespoon of Cracked Pepper
• 1 or 2 handfuls of a mixture of dried vegetable flakes and dried onion flakes (I sometimes omit this in favor of various fresh herbs)
• 1 Can of Beer (Room Temperature, no need to use anything fancy, but don't use swill either)

Optional

• Cheese: Cut into smallish chunks, pretty much anything works well though I'm a fan of strong cheddar, mozza and emmenthal. I didn't use enough cheese for my liking in this case, it had been several years since I'd made it.
• Meat: Dried meats work well, just make sure things are in tiny chunk and are obviously cooked.
• Herbs: Whatever tickles your fancy, I usually throw some dill in and whatever else I have around.

Method

• Mix all the base ingredients in a bowl or food processor until well blended.

• Add your optional ingredients

• Pour mixture into heavily buttered loaf pan as pictured, then brush the top with a little melted butter or sesame oil.

• Bake at 400F for an hour, then let cool on a rack.

Serving

The bread is best served while still warm and smeared with fresh butter. I should have added more cheese and mixed it a bit better, but I was in a bit of a hurry. Still it was incredibly tasty as always, the pepperoni I used was too spicy for some of my guests though.

Variations

This video demo shows GWS user Ulta's version. Recipe by Ulta, video by Argyle.