I'm a big fan of beer bread, and pretty damned good at making the normal stuff. but before I put a beer bread recipe up here I wanted to give it a twist. this is after all, a blog for only twisted recipes, weather they be only slightly twisted or in complete knots.
A lot of people think about quick breads when beer bread comes to mind. and those are good but so easy to make that its almost insulting to do so and show it off. You wont find many quick breads in the future of this blog, maybe one or two if I think of something really fun to do with them. otherwise absolutely none.
Besides that, yeast breads are so much more practical and versatile than quick breads. so lets get down to business!
The idea came to me today when I was trying to figure out how to make a better beer bread. what could I add? My normal beer bread already uses more than half wheat flour to enhance the taste of the beer (not my original idea, I admit. but I wouldn't have it any other way. )
I needed a good idea of my own to put into this stuff. What -else- goes good with beer?
Nuts. The famous beer-side snack of the bar scene.
Good right? But I'm not done yet.
I was at the local supermarket searching out ingredients, and then I saw them...a display case full of candy coated nuts. "Johnny Almond" to be exact.
They had various flavors but in the end I chose peanut brittle coated almonds, and I had my twist!
Here's What You'll Need!
1/2 oz yeast
1 tbsp Sugar
1 12 oz beer (Sam Adams Boston Lager in my case)
2 1/2 cup wheat flour
1 3/4 cup bread flour
3 tbsp butter
2 tsp salt
2 eggs
1/3rd cup water
1 cup crushed candy coated nuts of your choice (peanut brittle almonds in my case)
2 tbsp olive oil
Now we're all set so lets get cooking!
First thing is you need to wake your yeast. To do this, add it to your 3rd of a cup of warm water and let sit for 5 minutes.
In a seperate bowl add in most of your flour (reserve about a cup of the combined flour just in case it sucks up more than you would have thought. you can add it slowly that way and not dry out your dough. ) Add the sugar, salt, melted butter, nuts, and one egg. put the other aside for later.
next comes your yeast, and then right after, the good stuff. dump in your beer of choice and start mixing with a large wooden spoon.
Keep on mixing and adding the rest of the flour until a nice dough starts to pull together. then take over with your hands and knead it for 5 to 10 minutes on a well floured surface. ( I had to add in another 8th cup of each flour here, but that's what I get for not sifting first. You may or may not need to.)
Once the dough is formed, put 2 tbsp of oil into a large bowl, and form the dough into a ball and give it a roll to coat. Set a towel over the bowl with the dough in it and let sit for an hour.
Once the hour is up, dump the dough onto the counter and press the air out of it with a quick even knead, folding it once or twice. Get your dough cutter and cut it into 8 equal pieces. (16 if you want. they come out pretty big at 8, almost like kaiser rolls)
A lot of people use corn starch for the next step, not sure why. I haven't actually ever had the corn starch around to try, but instead of that I give the dough balls a light coating of oil before covering them again and letting sit for 30 minutes.
The oven goes up to 400 now, and when the half hour is up give them a quick egg wash with your remaining egg white. toss them in and keep em' there for 25 to 30 minutes. When they come out you'll have some big beautiful beer bread buns.
Just like these!! These turned out great.If there is anything to watch out for, its the slightly bitter taste that sugar can give off if it gets to burnt. a few bites came out like that for me, though the experience wasn't completely unpleasant. It reminded me of taking a quick sip of black coffee...
Come to think of it, one of these with a cup of coffee would make an ideal early morning snack.
No comments:
Post a Comment