Honey Beer Bread

Welcome to The Dark Side! As sort of a “soft opening” approach, for my first post I’ve made a simple beer bread to accompany a delicious Ginger-Lemon Carrot Soup on avacatau.com. Once you see how easy it is to make this bread yourself, you’ll never buy one of those overpriced beer bread mixes again. I choose to use a 50/50 mix of whole wheat pastry flour and all purpose flour, but you can use just 3 cups of all purpose flour if you wish instead. It is very important not to over mix the batter or the bread will be chewy and tough.

Honey Beer Bread

3 cups flour*
1 tablespoon aluminum free baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 12-ounce bottle beer
4 tablespoons honey, divided
½ melted butter

*I used a mix of 1-1/2 cups unbleached white flour and 1-1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour, but feel free to use 3 cups all purpose flour instead.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In a large bowl combine the two flours, baking powder, and salt. In a separate bowl combine the beer with 3 tablespoons honey. Pour the beer over the flour mixture and stir until just combined. DO NOT OVER MIX—it’s ok if the batter is lumpy. Pour half of the butter into the bottom of a metal loaf pan. Pour the batter into the pan and then pour the remaining butter over the batter. Drizzle with the remaining 1 tablespoon of honey. Bake for 30-40 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool slightly before slicing.