Doesn't the above equation sound good and exceedingly simple? Well, it's unfortunately slightly more complicated than that, but only very slightly. After a very long week (can you say exhaustion? no? you're too tired? me too), we came home tonight ready to kick back and enjoy our weekend. But the other day, I mentioned a new recipe to John involving Pyramid Brewery's Apricot Weizen. He was immediately intrigued and vowed to make it at his next available opportunity.
So tonight, we made Apricot Beer Bread. This was about the easiest bread we've ever made. This is a dense, slightly sweet bread that would work well for breakfast or dinner.
Ingredients (* = local, & = organic)
- 3 cups flour (we used Emmer flour) *&
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 2 tablespoons canola oil &
- 12 oz Apricot Weizen or other apricot beer *
- 1/2 cup dried apricots
We preheated the oven to 350 and buttered our 10.5 inch cast iron pan. You could also use a 9x5 inch loaf pan. 
We then mixed all of the dry ingredients in a bowl and made a well in the center. Next, we added the oil and the beer. We only had to stir the batter for a minute or two until all of the flour was mixed in. Then we sprinkled the dried apricots in and gave it another couple of turns before pouring the batter into the cast iron pan and sliding it into the oven.
At this point, I admit, I licked the spoon. I wouldn't normally do this for bread dough. Cookie dough, sure. Bread dough? No. But this dough smelled wonderful. The taste was just as good.
55 minutes later, when the toothpick came out clean, we pulled the bread out of the oven.
One thing I love about baking bread in the cast iron pan is that as long as you remember to butter the pan well before you add the dough, the baked bread just falls right out of the pan. We turned the bread onto the cooling rack, waited about 15 minutes, and tasted.
Well, ok, we did more than taste. I cut a pretty big hunk off and we devoured it. It smelled exactly like you would think a beer bread would smell. The flavor was light, but sweet. The only thing I didn't like about it was the dried apricots. I've always felt that dried fruit has a slightly chemical taste to it from whatever they use to preserve the fruit. I could taste a slight aftertaste of this flavor whenever I bit into a bite of dried apricot. We'll make this again, but without the dried fruit.
