Frugal Recipe – Beer Bread

I love beer bread.  If you have ever been to a <name deleted because I don’t want to get sued but it rhymes with “Hastefully Dimple”> party, you know that one of their best-sellers and tastiest items is their Beer Bread.  But at $4.99/box, I always bought it and saved it for a special occasion.

And then last week, thanks to my mother giving me a copy of the cookbook her Master Gardener Group made, I found 2 recipes for Beer Bread that can be made for 1/5 the price of the other stuff. 

I have tried one of the two recipes.  While it isn’t an exact match for the “other stuff”, it is pretty darn close.  All I can say is that, after paying $5/box for the other stuff for YEARS, it is a good thing that my priest wasn’t within a few blocks of my house when I tried it.  Had he heard the string of expletives that came out of my mouth when I realized how much cheaper I could have been making this stuff, he surely would have denied me Communion on Sunday!

Recipe 1 (the one I tried)

• 3 1/4-3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 c. sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 12-oz can/bottle beer (warm, but not flat.  So far I have used Yeungling Lager and Bud Lite with Lime and both were great)
• 1 egg, slighly beaten
• 3-4 tbsp butter

Preheat oven to 350.  Use 1-2 tbsp to butter a standard-size loaf pan

In a large bowl, mix together 3 1/4 cup flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and baking soda.  Add beer and egg.  Mix to incorporate all ingredients.  Spread in to buttered loaf pans.  Melt remaining butter and pour on top.  Bake for 50 minutes or until a toothpick/knife comes out clean

Recipe 2 (I haven’t tried this one yet, but this is is even easier!)

• 2 2/3 cup self-rising flour (NOT self-rising cake flour)
• 12 oz beer

Preheat oven to 375.  Lightly butter or grease a 9x5x3 loaf pan

In a large bowl, mix flour and beer until flour is moistened.  Pour into the loaf pan and bake for 55 minutes until the top is lightly browned, sides pull away from the pan and pick inserted near center comes out clean.  Cook pan on a wire rack for 5 minutes then turn out on rack to cool.

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