Sourdough Beer Bread

Most beer breads, a wonderfully easy quick bread, call for a LOT of sugar and butter as well as a full can of beer. With a crackly, crisp top and a soft crumb, it's really a tasty bread. This recipe, made with the wonderful wild yeast sourdough starter from Azure Standard, uses less of all of that.

Now I know you are thinking - is she daft?  Why add a sourdough starter to a quick bread that also has leavening?  In risen bread the acids in the sourdough make for a great dough conditioner, improving BOTH taste and texture.  In a quick bread, the acids won't have time for that, but it DOES amp up the the taste, plus adding the probiotics that are in sourdough can't hurt.  It is the faintest of sour tastes, tasted on the back of the tongue, but really quite nice and it makes for a very moist bread. Plus it's a nice way to use up an abundance of sourdough when you've been busy and have't made any sandwich bread. :-)

Sourdough Beer Bread

3 cups flour (I used a half and half mix of  King Arthur white and  Bob's red Mill whole wheat pastry flour)
3/4 cup Azyre Standard wild yeast sourdough starter (the only sourdough starter I've not been able to "kill off" - it's super easy)
1 Tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 Tablespoons of sugar
1 cup plus 4 Tablespoons beer (slightly less than a full bottle but if  batter is a bit dry, use it all)
4 Tablespoons unsalted butter

Preheat oven to 350 F.  Melt butter and set aside.  Spray a 9 x 5 loaf pan with non stick spray. Dust a little flour inside, then shake out.

In a medium bowl, thoroughly mix the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar.  Add the sourdough starter and beer, stirring with a spatula until moist and combined.  Pour into loaf pan.  Pour melted butter over top (makes for a nice crackly top).

Bake for 45-50 minutes until golden on top and a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Loosen bread from sides of pan with knife, let cool a few minutes then remove from pan and cool on a rack slightly before slicing.  This also makes some great toast for breakfast.  My husband had a piece every single morning instead of his usual bread.

If you want easy muffins from this recipe - add the butter INTO the batter and place into 12 greased muffin cups (about 2/3 full). Bake for 30 minutes. For savory dinner muffins, reduce sugar by 1 Tablespoon, add 1/2 teaspoon of dried herbs and sprinkle sea salt on top.  Guinness as the beer with rosemary makes a particularly nice dinner muffin to accompany vegetable soups or stews. They have a light crunchy outer shell and a very soft filling and though not photogenic, are really tasty.