Thursday, January 5, 2012

Whole Wheat Rosemary Beer Bread

Everyone loves the taste of fresh baked bread.  But not everyone loves the time it takes to make fresh bread.  Quick bread to the rescue!  The hands-on time required for this beer bread is approximately 2 minutes.  And with the addition of a bit of rosemary, this bread smells wonderful, and it tastes like something that took hours.

And, this is a relatively healthy quick bread.  Many quick breads include a lot of sugar, butter, sour cream, etc.  Beer bread includes beer.  I used a 12 oz light beer because that's what I had on hand.  Light beers usually have about 110 calories per 12 oz bottle.  But if you want a stronger beer flavor, using a regular beer will only add about 40 calories to the whole loaf.  Unless you plan to eat the whole loaf in one sitting, that's probably not going matter.  And if you eat the whole loaf in one sitting, I think you have bigger worries than the 40 extra calories!

As I said, this seriously could not be easier to make.  Whisk together flours (I just had to use some whole wheat flour!), salt, baking powder, sugar, and rosemary.
Now add your beer.  Bubbly!  I may or may not have taken a sip of the beer before I poured it.  I prefer not to disclose that information.
Now stir. 
And pour it into a greased loaf pan.  Tough, I know!
Bake for an hour.  Prepare yourself for a wonderful rosemary aroma.  Remove the loaf from the pan and drizzle with melted butter or margarine.  If you are really serious about cutting calories, you can omit this step. 

Whole Wheat Rosemary Beer Bread
Ingredients:
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
4 tsp baking powder
3 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp fresh rosemary, or 1 tsp of dried rosemary
12 oz room temperature beer
2 Tbsp melted butter or margarine
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Spray a 9x5-inch loaf pan with cooking spray.
Whisk together all dry ingredients.  Add the beer and stir just until combined.
Spoon batter into prepared loaf pan.  Bake for 1 hour.  Remove immediately from pan and place on a cooling rack over a cookie sheet.  Pour melted butter on top of the bread, letting it drip down the sides.

2 comments:

  1. I was just going to send you a recipe for dill and cheddar beer bread the other day. I guess great minds think alike. Jeff will love this!

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  2. It's a dreary SW KS Sunday--perfect for baking...have your beer bread in the oven. The sale barn sent us a pre-cooked brisket for Christmas. Think I'll make PW's whiskey cream sauce for that. With a few sides, I'll have a nice meal! The beer bread was super fast for a lazy day and you're right, it makes the house smell awesome!!

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