12 Feb Just Add Beer: Apple Cinnamon Beer Bread Featuring Upland Wheat
Beer and bread; separately they are wonderful, together they are magical! Throw in some apples, cinnamon, and a little brown sugar and you’re in for a veritable flavor explosion in your mouth.
Anyhoo, I stumbled upon this nifty little recipe several days ago, and was waiting for the perfect moment to make it. Last night, that perfect moment arrived. I gathered all of my ingredients and set up shop in my minuscule galley kitchen that’s barely big enough for both me and my cat to fit into at the same time. I only mention the cat, as she feels she must supervise my baking to insure all goes according to plan.
Plan is as follows:
FIRST – preheat the oven to 350 degrees (it will save you time and frustration if you do…I speak from personal experience).
2 cups whole wheat flour – check
½ tsp baking soda – yup
1 ½ tsp baking powder – had to dig to the back of my cabinet, but check!
¼ tsp salt –duhh
2 tsp cinnamon- EXTRA CHECK (seriously, I have like 5 containers of cinnamon at my place. Apparently I can never remember if I have it, so I buy it again and again and again)
½ cup brown sugar – got it
1 egg at room temp – present!
½ cup plain Greek style yogurt – you betchya
1 tbsp melted butter – Um, I live in Indiana, of course I have butter
2 tsp vanilla extract – righto
1 apple diced – one left in the fruit basket! Got it!
Cinnamon chips – what the hell are those? SKIP
DON’T FORGET THE BEER!!! ½ cup – Oh yeah, I still live in Indiana, good beer isn’t too hard to come by, even way out here in little ol’ Richmond. For the beer portion of the beer bread, I used Upland’s Wheat Ale, which was perfect for this recipe, as it added the light flavor of beer we all love when eating beer bread. It also acted as one of the leavening agents so I didn’t end up with a solid lump of “almost” bread. Whichever beer you choose to add, I would recommend a lighter ale or lager that will not over power the flavor of the other ingredients.
THIRD – Commence the baking!
Mix all dry ingredients together except brown sugar (flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon) in a bowl of your choosing.
In separate bowl, mix together all wet ingredients (melted butter, room temp egg, and vanilla) stir in the brown sugar and Greek yogurt until no lumps remain.
Then, alternate adding the dry ingredients and the beer, starting and ending with the dry ingredients. Once this is all incorporated, it should look like a sticky mess of playdough (I promise it tastes better). After you achieve sticky mess of playdough status, fold in the apple pieces until evenly dispersed.
Then pour the mixture into a GREASED 9×5 loaf pan. Sprinkle some brown sugar on top, just because it’s good.
FOURTH – Bake
Place in oven (duhh).
Keep in in the oven for 40-45 minutes (until a toothpick comes out clean).
After 40-45 minutes, take it out of the oven! It tastes better when it isn’t burnt.
Let it sit in the pan for 10 minutes.
Then remove from pan, slice, and enjoy!
Personal note: I would highly recommend adding some salted butter for optimum enjoyment. You won’t be sorry!
Epilogue: I took this bread into my coworkers. I set it out at about 8:30 AM and was COMPLETELY GONE by 10. Commence feelings of accomplishment and self-satisfaction. I would love to hear about your successes or not so successes with this recipe! Just give me a shout below in the comments section.
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