Apple Bread

Recipe from: allrecipes.com/recipe/223602/apple-bread-2/

I've been experimenting with different types of bread because where I am currently, all we have in the pantry are baking goods. But that's great, I think, because bread's been a staple of literally every culture since civilization began. This is a quick-bread recipe I found to get rid of the apples that have been sitting on the counter for weeks (they were still good, mind you).

Ingredients

• Cooking spray
• 3 cups all-purpose flour (I have no idea how you have to change the recipe if you're using self-rising flour; I'd assume you'd omit the baking soda and salt, but I'm not one-hundred percent sure.)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• The recipe says that 1 cup chopped walnuts are an optional addition (which makes me want to try it with cranberries, too, in the fall), but I didn't have any, so I left those out.
• 3 apples (the recipe says 3 cups, which is about three apples), peeled, cored, and chopped
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 2 cups white sugar
• 3 eggs, beaten (if I intend to take this project seriously, I need to start buying farm-fresh)
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon (one of those teaspoons, for my version, was a mixture we had on hand of brown sugar, nutmeg, Saigon cinnamon, and a little bit of salt)

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 300 degrees. I know that sounds a little low, but you're going to be cooking it a long time. Prepare  your loaf pan(s) by spraying them liberally (sides and all) with cooking spray. The yield of this particular recipe is two loaves. I only baked one because we only have one loaf pan. The rest of the batter is sitting in my fridge for tomorrow.

In a large mixing bowl, mix your flour, baking soda, salt, walnuts (or cranberries, if you chose to add either), and apples.

In another, slightly smaller mixing bowl, beat together your eggs, oil, sugar, and cinnamon. I would suggest beating the eggs separately first, so that you can be sure that a) they are thoroughly beaten, and b) that no rogue bits of shell find their way into the batter.

It was at this point that I realized that we didn't have enough sugar. Panicking and not thinking, I dumped half a cup of sugar into the flour-apple mix, since recipes usually instruct you to mix the sugar in with the dry ingredients. I'm relieved to find that this didn't hurt anything, but I'll explain in a little bit why you need to put at least most of the sugar into the egg mixture.

All told, I had about a cup of sugar left, and it was too late to cut the recipe in half (which I was going to do anyway, but how does one cut three eggs in half?). So, I saved the other half cup of sugar, stored the bowls in the fridge, and waited until we were able to take a trip to the store.

When I retrieved the bowls a few hours later, nothing had been altered save for a few ice crystals in the eggs, so I carried on with the original plan.

Here's why the sugar needs to be mixed in with the eggs: it creates a creamy, cinnamony sauce kind of like that which you find in the filling of apple pie (except this stuff contains raw eggs).

Raw eggs notwithstanding, I was sorely tempted to take a bite.

Now, you mix the two mixtures together. I added the wet to the dry, but I would recommend adding the dry to the wet, so you don't have to worry about those pesky, hard-to-reach flour reserves on the bottom.

Then, just divide the batter between your loaf pans and bake them for 90 minutes, or until they pass the toothpick test (when a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean).

When it's done baking, let it cool and solidify for 10 more minutes before moving it to a wire rack (or in my case, a plate).

Enjoy!

The result, if done correctly, is a soft bread with a thin, somewhat crispy crust. It's wonderful as dessert, breakfast, or a snack.

Beer Bread

Recipe from: food.com/recipe/beer-bread-73440

Warning: this dish is prepared using an alcoholic beverage. Although the alcohol will "cook out," making it safe for children to eat, consumption of this dish may conflict with the beliefs of certain religious faiths. It is possible to bake without using alcohol, but please note that beer takes the place of yeast, and if the beer is omitted, yeast will be required.

The Importance of Beer to Civilization

Beer is one of the world's oldest beverages, brewed and consumed as far back as 5000 B.C., in Mesopotamia. It became popular due to its intoxicating effect, and even earned an important role in the mythologies of beer-drinking cultures. In the Middle Ages, as settlements grew more crowded and hygiene reached an all-time low, beer, wine, and other alcoholic beverages were pretty much the only substances that were safe to drink. So people began to get creative with their beer, mixing in different ingredients such as fruits and a variety of grains and even some downright odd stuff such as chicken. (I want to try chicken beer.) To regulate this, the Bavarian government passed the Reinheitsgebot, the first food/beverage purity law in history, which placed restrictions on the ingredients that could be used in the brewing process.

Ingredients

• 3 cups sifted flour
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 12 oz beer (I used Guinness because that's what was in the fridge.)
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup melted butter (We keep our butter sitting out so that it's always softened; it's easier to work with, and contrary to popular belief, it doesn't go bad that way.)
• 3 teaspoons baking powder*
• 1 teaspoon salt

*Not all flours are created equal. I set the baking powder and salt away from the rest of the ingredients because the recipe I used says to omit them if the flour you are using is self-rising. Only when I was lining the ingredients up for the photo did I realize that, haha, whoops, my flour is self-rising. So after the picture was taken I put the salt and baking powder right back in the cabinet.

Instructions

Sifting the flour is imperative in order to achieve the desired consistency. Just scooping the flour out of the container with the measuring cup compacts it, and that means your bread will be hard and compact as well. The kitchen in which I was working doesn't have a sifter, and if that's your plight, just spoon the flour into the container and level it off with a knife or your finger.

It would behoove you to use a larger spoon; three cups is a lot of volume to fill.

Now, measure out your beer. The can of Guinness I used was 14.6 fluid ounces, and I only needed twelve.

Now, just mix the dry ingredients and beer until the dough looks something like this:]

Then put it in a greased loaf pan, pour the melted butter over the top to make the crust crispy, and bake at 375 degrees for one hour.

I always grease the hell out of my pans. I don't like anything sticking to them.

When it's done, let cool at least fifteen minutes and serve.