Beer Bread with Lemon & Thyme

Beer Bread with Lemon & Thyme

If like me, you have little experience with baking, the thought of making bread can be daunting. Stater doughs, yeasts, will it rise, will it flop – worryworryworry.

Adding beer to the bread dough takes the place of a yeast and is one of the simplest breads you can make. The beer’s bitterness dissipates during baking and is tempered by the sugar added.

Lemon zest, thyme and mature cheddar cheese elevate this bread into something special. I made this a bran rich bread. You can easily achieve similar results with ordinary white bread flour.

It takes minutes to mix up the dough and all you have to do is find something to occupy yourself with for an hour while the bread bakes to perfection. Easier than this, they don’t come.

Ingredients

3 cups sifted bran rich self raising flour

or

3 cups sifted flour + 3 t baking powder + 1 t salt

50 ml sugar

340 ml bottle beer

1/2 cup oil or melted butter (I used a mixture of olive & sunflower oil)

2 large lemons, zested

1 T thyme leaves removed from stalks

1/2 cup mature cheddar cheese, finely grated (optional)

Method

Preheat oven to 190 degrees Celsius.

Grease a standard baking loaf tin.

Mix all ingredients together, till properly combined.

Pour batter into tin and bake for 1 hr or until skewer inserted into centre comes out clean.

Allow to cool for 20 minutes before turning out onto wire rack.

Serve warm with cold butter.

serve warm with butter