Easy Beer Bread
My younger brother gave me a variation of this recipe several years ago after using it during a long trip to the Minnesota Boundary Waters. This is a real recipe, unlike previous gourmet cooking lessons.
3 cups flour
1/3 cup sugar
4 tsp. baking powder (1 tbsp & 1 tsp)
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. cream of tarter
12 oz. beer (standard can or bottle, any kind)
1/4 cup butter (1/2 stick)
1. Heat oven to 350. Grease standard loaf pan. (I use non-stick cooking spray.)
2. Mix dry ingredients in large bowl. Stir in beer until fully mixed and no longer foaming.
3. Spread in pan. Bake 45 minutes.
4. Melt butter. (I microwave it in a coffee mug.) Take pan out of oven. Pour butter evenly over bread. If desired, first poke small holes in the bread using a knife or chopstick, to create places for butter to pool.
5. Bake 15 more minutes. Best served warm. Cover leftovers with foil or plastic wrap to prevent it from getting hard (unless you want that for putting crisp bits in soup). Ok to store at room temperature.
We eat this bread with homemade split pea soup, chili, and tomato soup. It’s also good with jam or cheese. I recommend warming leftovers in the microwave before eating.
The original recipe called for just four ingredients: self-rising flour, sugar, beer, and butter. I don’t have self-rising flour so fiddled with different ratios of the Emergency Substitutions listed at the back of my Betty Crocker cookbook until I found my preferred combination. Increase sugar and decrease salt to make it taste almost like banana bread, or add more salt and skip the baking soda & cream of tarter to make it more biscuit-like. It does not actually taste like beer.