I've been really wanting to make bread because tea is a drink with jam and bread, which brings us back to....happy memories! But, all the recipes that look good have yeast in them and I am afraid of yeast. I once had a bad experience with rising dough taking over a kitchen counter. It totally creeped me out. Also, yeast infections are bad and just seeing the packets of yeast makes me nervous. Photographer and artist (and friend!) Tonya Doughty posted this recipe for beer bread and she swore (as a fellow beer not-liker) that it was a keeper. I believed her and the recipe looked easy. Best of all, the recipe didn't call for leaving anything to rise and kill you in your sleep. The only problem is I hate, Hate, HATE beer. Even the smell makes me gag. I know so little about beer that I had to ask what kind didn't taste too beery to get for this bread. I ended up getting Amstel Light. I made the bread following Tonya's recipe exactly and even opening the beer made me nervous. Actually, I felt weird buying it with a box of cereal at 9 AM so that didn't help. The smell of the beer while I mixed the dough was so strong that I had my doubts. I popped the bread in the oven and soon my house started to smell like fresh baking bread. The beer smell was dissipating!
When the timer went off, I could not believe my eyes when I opened the oven door. There was a beautiful golden loaf of crusty bread! I turned it out of the pan and following Tonya's instructions, I slathered it with butter (ok, light butter, I am still ME) and tried it. It was DELICIOUS! It didn't taste like beer at all! The crust was buttery and crumbly and the inside was fluffy and comforting. It was a bit sour like sour dough but also a little salty because I used salted butter. It was so good with butter and less good with Nutella (too much salt or too heavy, we couldn't figure it out). It was best with orange marmalade. I know this because my leetle brother stopped by and we all stood in the kitchen trying every spread and condiment in my kitchen on the fresh baked bread. It was so, so good. I will make this again many times. And I will make it for other people. I need to make another loaf to try a grilled cheese sandwich! Thank you for sharing your recipe, Tonya!
Today in the happy experience department, someone knocked on my door and it wasn't someone looking for a ball. It was a cupcake baker with a special delivery of CUPCAKES, sent by the lovely Maria. I did not even know there was such a thing as cupcake delivery. That's the type of thing you dream about at 3:30 in the afternoon when you are between a nap and awake. No matter what type of day you are having, a cupcake delivery will make you smile. Dustin and I will be eating cupcakes for dinner tonight and perhaps for breakfast. I do not think he will complain. I'm already fighting Suki off. Thank you, Maria!
