What’d You Do Last Weekend?
Make your own bitters.
Beer Bread
Earlier this year I borrowed a copy of Ruth Levy Beranbaum's The Bread Bible from the library and culled through it for recipes I wanted to try. Rather than buy every book I want, I'd rather borrow, try a few recipes, and then decide if it's something I need to add to our (ample) cookbook library. One of the early recipes I'd settled on was a beer bread. I'm a big fan of pumpernickel bread and while this recipe didn't have some of those familiar pumpernickel ingredients, I thought it might be a good weekday-night substitute. The trick was in finding a flavorful enough beer to use.
Beranbaum's recipe calls for a dark beer (I think it actually refers to Beck's Dark), but in this part of the country we're fortunate to have a plethora of craft brews that run the gamut from sour white to sweet and practically tar black. Last year Todd and I brewed a sour cherry stout that would have been perfect for this bread, but I was holding out for the white whale of the beer world. Something I hadn't really seen before. 
Maui Brewing Company's Coconut Porter was about as Moby Dick as I was going to get. Hard to get stateside (until it started showing up at Whole Foods recently, with a pricetag to suggest each 4-pack got its own coach seat), this is a creamy and earthy porter with a deep roasted coconut scent. I'd heard of the beer from John Eddy (half of Cook Local), who'd had it on a trip to the islands, and he'd said not to miss it.
I mixed up the very loose dough, and just before leaving it to rise, I sprayed it with coconut oil cooking spray to keep it from sticking to the bowl. Between that and the beer, the finished bread did have a hint of coconut but it wasn't overpowering or sweet. We got a crusty crust and a tender crumb, very much like pumpernickel, but with fewer ingredients. I noticed that it didn't stale as quickly as leaner doughs (probably because of the coconut oil or the beer or both), and it made excellent slicing sandwich bread.
I didn't have an ideal beer bread in mind before I started this recipe, but I'm really pleased with these results. I plan to keep this in my repertoire, maybe adjusting with a new beer every now and then - if only to excuse me from sampling as much of the craft brews as I can!
Beer Bread (adapted from The Bread Bible)
1+1/4 tsp instant yeast
1 T sugar
2+1/2 c minus 1 T bread flour
3 T minus 1 tsp white whole wheat flour (I use King Arthur white whole wheat for this, and it's a beautiful off-white color and isn't as hard as regular whole wheat)
1 c + 2 T (9oz) dark beer at room temp
1+1/4 tsp salt
Cooking oil spray (I used coconut oil kitchen spray from Spectrum)
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the yeast, salt, bread flour (minus 2 T) and whole wheat flour.
- Mix on low speed briefly, then add the beer and mix on low for another minute, enough to moisten all the flour.
- Scrape down and cover with plastic wrap and rest for 20 minutes.
- After 20 minutes, add the salt to the bowl and mix using the dough hook for 6 - 7 minutes, enough for the dough to come together. Add the remaining 2 T bread flour if the dough does not come away from the sides of the bowl.
Note: I never used the remaining 2 T of bread flour. - Spray a large bowl with cooking oil and place the dough in the bowl, spraying the top of the dough as well. Cover with plastic wrap and rise until doubled in size, about 90 - 120 minutes.
- After the dough has risen, turn it out on a lightly floured counter and deflate it gently.
- Shape the dough and place it on a parchment paper lined baking sheet. Spray with cooking oil and cover loosely with plastic wrap. Let the dough rise again, about 1 - 1+1/2 hours or until almost doubled.
- Preheat the oven to 450F at least 40 minutes before baking.
- Slash the bread immediately before placing in the oven.
- Bake for 15 minutes, spritzing with water three times in the first 2 minutes the bread is in the oven.
- Lower the temperature to 400F and bake for 30 - 40 minutes, or until the internal temperature is 200F. Turn the bread midway through the baking time to ensure even baking.
Comments
Well done
WOW that beer bread looks delicious I love the colour and the crust looks spot-on. And the recipe does look simple. Great work
Bread is love
Thanks, Audax! Just wait until you see the doughnuts...
BlogHer Food
Hi Jenny! It was so great to meet you at BlogHer Food! We really like your blog! We've actually just done a BlogHer Food recap post on Fashionably Bombed and we put a link up to your site! Cheers!
The Fashionably Bombed Girls
Jenny ~ I always just swoon
Jenny ~ I always just swoon whenever I find myself here on your site; I just love the things you do! I'm not at all a baker other than the silly cookies, brownies, etc. but this kind of baking is swoon-worthy! happy sigh . . .
I will miss baking for a while!
Thanks, Deb - I really love baking bread and stuff that's totally out there. I have to take a baking (and cooking) hiatus for a few months and I'm dreading what that's going to do to my skills, but I've got a few posts stored up and some tricks up my sleeve so I don't go totally dark. It'll be fun, I promise.
And Ginger and Rowdy - you're right, the library is the best place to grab books. I feel so behind in testing and baking out of some of these books - and I'm always rushed to get them back (the best books usually have a waiting list about 60 deep around here, so you get them for 2 weeks only). This winter's crop of new books combined with a lack of baking space is going to put me even further behind - but oh, how I love to look.
Library also
Our library system allows us to submit requests for new books we would like them to order.
New cookbooks that are coming out soon are my favorite requests.
Haven't been turned down yet and it puts me first in line for the hold.
This way I can decide whether or not I want to buy it.
Vote Yes for Libraries!
Library!
I borrow stacks of cookbooks from the library, too. I try not to get food stains on the pages before I return them, but it's hard sometimes!