Beer Bread

I'd been meaning to make my colleague Simchi's beer bread for months.  When life handed me an almost-full, slightly-flat bottle of Fat Tire, I knew the time had finally come.

This recipe uses quite a lot of baking powder, so my guess is that the beer doesn't really serve a functional role so much as a taste role.  The beer (naturally) made the bread taste yeasty, as if it wasn't just a soda bread.  The texture, however, was still closer to that of a soda bread--no net of gluten going on here, despite the fact that the dough was quite doughy (as opposed to the battery consistency of many quick breads). 

I thought this bread was fast and delicious, but be warned that it is rather dry.  Acceptable accompaniments include: soup, or lots of melty butter.  Peanut butter is not recommended unless you want to glue your tongue to the roof of your mouth (or, wash it down with a lot of tea/coffee/soymilk).

Beer Bread

Ingredients

2 c white flour

1 c whole wheat flour

2 TB sugar

1 TB baking powder

pinch salt

splash olive oil

1 bottle room temp beer

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375. Grease loaf pan with olive oil.
Combine dry ingredients in a bowl. Add olive oil and beer; don’t overmix.
Transfer dough to greased loaf pan.
Bake at 375 for about 40 min, until a wooden chopstick comes out clean when inserted.