Mmmm, warm bread.  Mmmm, warm beer bread. Even better, right?  I used to be addicted to the Tastefully Simple beer bread (best served cubed for dipping into Tastefully Simple dill dip), but after a while, I hated having to cough up enough interest in their other  items to make my order of beer bread a worthwhile purchase.  So, I took to Google and figured out how to make it myself.  Love that Google.

The recipe is really easy; the ingredients are things that you already have on hand:

flour

sugar

salt

baking powder

beer

butter

The one thing I had to invest in was a sifter, but you can score one of those at the Dollar Tree for — you guessed it — a dollar! And as it turns out, I used the sifter way more than I anticipated, so much so, I upgraded to a Bed, Bath, and Beyond one.  I know, big spender. 

Anyway, since the weather has turned colder, I’ve been making more hearty fare for the family.  There’s been chili, there’s been sausage rotini bakes, and ham and white bean stew.  The perfect accompaniment to all of these? Beer bread!  In part, the preponderance of beer bread also stems from the undrinkable 12 pack of Blue Moon Pumpkin Ale that I bought in September.  I mean, after that initial bottle, I was pretty much over it.  Craig doesn’t really drink beer and if he does, he’s going straight for the Red Stripe. My father and my father–in-law will crack open a Sam Adams, only if there’s no Red Stripe to be found.  So, the Pumpkin Ale has been sitting, taking up valuable refrigerator real estate, until I started baking bread.  

I’m down to my last three bottles, trying to figure out if I can modify the Beer Can Chicken recipe to accommodate a bottle, when a note comes home from Coever’s school.  Her class is celebrating Thanksgiving with a little party and wouldn’t I want to sign up to bring in something tasty.  Among the options from which to choose — bread!  Ding! Ding! Ding! So, I got rid of the last of that Pumpkin Ale and got my shine on for delivering some homemade baked goods.  Coever’s class got two homemade loaves of buttery beer bread made with gluten free flour and no nuts (take that allergens).  

This week has been kind of crazy, so I wasn’t able to get my Martha Stewart on and wrap the bread in hand made, filigree decorated paper, tied with raffia that I dried in the eaves of my attic and festooned with monogrammed gold painted cranberry clusters.  I’ll save that for the Christmas holiday party. 

Happy Friday, ya’ll!