Beer Bread

This is the last recipe I made before my life took a downward spiral.  It makes me feel a bit stressed to write about it, going back to this time in my head.  But please, don't let that take away from this beer bread.  Because, if there is a lesson to be learned from this, it's that a good beer bread can even be good when your life is sort of falling apart.  And it's so easy to throw together (one bowl, 5 ingredients) that you could even make it while scream crying and having anxiety... you know, should you ever find yourself in that situation.  Hypothetically.

The story behind the beer bread is that Mark was cleaning out the garage and throwing out all the bottles of beer we had left over from last summer.  I begged him to find me some that weren't skunked to bake with, because the thought of all those wasted bottles was stressing me out.  He managed to dig up two bottles that weren't frightening, and I made bread with one.  With the other, since I only own one bread pan, I made beer bread mini muffins.  I brought both to my mom's for a little party they were having. They made a dip to go with the muffins, but it wasn't so good so I won't be sharing.  What is your favorite beer bread accompaniment? I need a good beer bread go-to dip.

I decided to make beer breads/muffins because I wasn't sure how else to use oldish beer, but while I was looking up recipes I saw all sorts of interesting things, including beer bread with cheese, beer pizza dough, beer cakes, brownies, you name it.  Have you tried any of these?  What do you make with beer?

For me, the bread made awesome sandwiches (it was totally amazing with the tempeh bacon I made for the vegetarian BLTs) and really good toast too.

Really, it's too easy not to make the next time you have an extra bottle of beer.  No excuses.
Recipe:

beer bread
fromHalf Baked Harvest

Ingredients:
3 cups flour
4 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 cup brown sugar, loosely packed
12 ounces of beer
1/2 teaspoon salt

Instructions:

1) Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  Spray a 9x5 loaf pan with nonstick spray.

2) Add the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, and a pinch of salt to a mixing bowl.  Pour in the beer and stir with a mixing spoon until just combined.

3) Pour the batter into the loaf pan.  Bake for 45 - 50 minutes or until the top of the bread is lightly browned and the middle is set.  Allow to sit 15 minutes before serving.