beer bread
1 loaf — 60 minutes
The idea of making beer bread came from a book written by Lin Pardey called "The Care and Feeding of the Offshore Crew". In this book, Lin talks about cooking at sea, and has an entire chapter dedicated to baking onboard. In this chapter, the author talks about the many ways to make fresh bread while sailing, including a quickbread recipe that uses 3 basic ingredients: flour, sugar and beer.
Beer bread you say? Right up our alley. The next day we gave it a try, the result was fantastic.
The amazing thing about beer bread is that using different beer, will change the flavor and color of the bread. We tried baking with an IPA (21st amendment), a Hefeweizen (Sunriver brewing co) and a brown ale (Hobgoblin).
Substitutions
If you have self-rising flour, you can omit the baking powder and salt. Also, you can omit the leavening agent if you have a craft beer that has live yeast sediment at the bottom of the bottle, although most manufacturers filter it out.
To make a sandwich bread-style loaf, add a tbsp of fat (vegan butter or olive oil).
We made a video of the beer bread-making process, check it out here.
all purpose flour240 g
salt1.25 g
baking powder7 g
granulated sugar45 g
beer330 ml (1 can)
cornmeal20 g
canola oil15 ml
rolled oats30 g
beer bread
- Preheat your oven at 180 °C (350 °F).
- In a large bowl, mix 240 g (2 cups) of all purpose flour, 2.5 g (1/2 tsp) of salt, 7 g (1 1/2 tsp) of baking powder, 45 g (3 tbsp) of sugar and 330 ml (1 can) of beer. Mix well, and add extra flour if the dough is too sticky. No kneading is required.
- Coat the bottom of your bread pan with 15 ml (1 tbsp) of vegetable oil, make sure to spread it out evenly, and thinly. Sprinkle ~20 g (2 tbsp) of corn meal in your bread pan, or tray, shake the cornmeal around so it covers the entire bottom.
- Transfer the bread dough into the pan. Sprinkle 30 g (~3 tbsp) of oats on top of the bread, press them down into the dough lightly.
- Bake for 1 hour.
- Let cool on a dish towel, or rack.