H and I had made beer bread together several months ago and those warm, happy memories had stayed with me. When a dinner guest came bearing two boxes of beer to drink between himself and the boyfriend, I found myself anxiously wondering what to do with the rest of it. I don’t drink beer; I’m not accustomed to having it around the apartment; and thus its lack of a specific spot in the kitchen had me looking for quick ways to use it. I opted to try Farmgirl Fare’s beer bread recipe again, trying a very different variant. It came out delicious- warm, crusty, but moist on the inside… incredibly fragrant and with a very nice texture.
Onion, Garlic, and Chives San Pietro Beer Bread
Adapted from / variant of Farmgirl Fare’s Beyond-Easy Beer Bread
Ingredients:
- 1 12-oz bottle Fat Tire beer
- 1/3 cup chopped chives
- 4 cloves garlic, minced and smashed
- 4 small white chive onions, diced
- 3/4 cup grated San Pietro cheese
- 3 cups organic all-purpose flour
- 1 tblspn granulated sugar, baking powder
- 1 tsp sea salt
- 1 tsp large rock sea salt for garnish
- 1 egg for garnish
Process:
- Heat oven to 375 degrees F.
- Mix together all ingredients other than the beer- San Pietro, chives, onion, garlic, flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder, in a large mixing bowl. Make sure that these are evenly distributed- once the beer is in, you don’t want to overmix, so it’s essential to make sure that things are as uniform- or not- as you’d like at this point.
- Add the beer a bit at a time in a steady stream, mixing as little as possible. There may be a few small clumps of flour that remain unmixed- despite the strong urge to mix them in thoroughly, don’t- just know that the baking process will fix it for you :)
- Grease a bread pan with soy butter and pour in the dough. Crack the egg into a small mixing bowl and beat thoroughly. Take a pastry or basting brush and brush on the egg , then sprinkle on large sea salt and extra cheese if you’d like acrispier crust (if not, leave out the extra cheese).
- Place the bread in the middle rack of the oven and bake for 50 min – 1 hour, until the middle is cooked through (use a toothpick) and the top has a rich golden hue. Cool on a wire cooling rack once cool enough to handle quickly, and then transfer to a cutting board and slice it up!
It’s delicious warm, seriously. Eat it warm. Mmmh. The smell of fresh bread baking in the oven is rather hard to beat, and this one is salty, rich, and tasty! FF’s recipe is so incredibly simple, and doesn’t require any kneading. No need to knead! No worrying about activating yeast- it’s already bubbling in the beer! What more can you ask for in a quick, painless bread recipe?
