Beer Bread: The Best Bread I Have Ever Made

The title of this post is no exaggeration. This recipe for Beer Bread turned out to be the best loaf of bread I have ever made - both times I made it. I am not quite sure what accounted for this amazingness. It may been the beer selection. It may have been that I used one bottle for the bread and drank the other five while baking. But either way, when I tasted this loaf, I thought it was by far the best loaf of bread I have made to date. It was a perfect combination of a crunchy, hard crust and soft, doughy crumb. Also, the aroma and flavor were a bit nutty and sweet. It turned out so much better than I anticipated. All beer breads I have had in the past have usually been a little too doughy and heavy for my liking. This recipe, which is a conglomeration of a few that I was able to find online and in a few books, turned out to be quite the satisfactory loaf. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

• 3 cups sifted all purpose flour
• 3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 12oz. beer

Recipe:

1. Most recipes that I found called for sifted flour, which I think it a way to avoid that heaviness that I have always experienced with beer bread before. So I highly suggest sifting the flour first since it seems to have worked out well with this loaf.
2. Combine all dry ingredients in your mixing bowl. Some recipes mentioned that you could use self-rising flour instead of the using baking powder as the leavening agent. I prefer to use the baking powder.
   
3. Pour in your bottle of beer. Open the others to start drinking.
4. Mix for about 2 minutes with a dough hook or by hand until a really wet dough forms.
5. Use either a greased spatula or floured hands to transfer your dough to an oiled loaf pan. No need to let it rise or knead the dough. Just pop it in your preheated oven.
   
6. Bake at 375 degrees for about 65 to 75 minutes.
7. Let cool for a few minutes in the loaf pan and then for about 45 minutes more on a wire rack or countertop before cutting into it.

I'm not sure how much using different beers will affect the bread. I used a pretty great Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale. I think you will probably get best results from using a pretty decent beer. If you use something cheap - like say that case of Nati Light that you have sitting around from your last frat party - then you will probably get some crappy bread. Give it a try and see what you get.

Chocolate Chip Bread

Here is another variation on the Cinnamon Raisin Bread from the last post. Pretty similar in terms of preparation and recipe, but just a few simple variations make a great, unique sweet bread. This just goes to show you how flexible a simple bread recipe can be. You could make this recipe plain, with no Chocolate Chips and it would probably make a great loaf, or you could come up with some other creative variations of your own.
Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cups of milk
• 3 1/2 cups of flour
• 3 tablespoons of sugar
• 2 1/2 teaspoons of instant yeast
• 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt (I used Kosher salt here)
• 1/3ish cups of chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Warm your milk to about 95 degrees and then whisk or slowly sprinkle in your yeast until dissolved.
2. Combine the rest of your dry ingredients in your mixing bowl. You can just eyeball the amount of chocolate chips you want, but I used about 1/3 of a cup on this loaf.
3. If you are using a stand mixer, mix for one minute with your paddle attachment while you add your yeast and milk mixture to your dry ingredients. You should obtain a ball of dough.
4. Switch over to your dough hook and mix for another two minutes. If you are not using a stand mixer, just combine steps 3 and 4 mixing by hand until you have a nice soft, slightly sticky ball of dough that looks like it could use some kneading.
5. Knead for 10 minutes on a lightly floured surface and then form the dough back into a ball and put in a covered, oiled, large mixing bowl for about an hour.
6. After the dough rises (1.5 to 2 times it's size), roll it out - now this time I tried a little bit of a different shaping method. I rolled the dough out until it was between a 1/4 inch and 1/2 inch thick. Then I folded in the sides until I had the width I was looking for and then I rolled it up as usual. I thought this would be easier than trying to roll out to a rectangle.
7. After rolling up your dough, place in your lightly oiled, covered loaf pan let it rise for one more hour.
   
8. Bake in the oven at 400 degrees for about 20 to 25 minutes until nice and golden brown. I was running late for work so I took mine out a little early. Fortunately for me, the same coworker who I made this for because she likes chocolate chip anything also happens to like breads that are a little under-baked and doughy. So all in all, it was a success.