Greetings, Mystic Meows!

I don’t know about you meowsers, but I enjoy baking quite a bit. I suppose as far as bread is concerned, most meows feel either intimidated by it and think it’s too hard or takes too much time. Thankfully there’s a world full of easy bread recipes that don’t require a high level of cooking skills and only use a handful of ingredients to pull it together. And I’m here to encourage you to try your hand at it with a recipe that was created by one of my favorite cooking blogs, Half Baked Harvest by Teighan Gerard.

This recipe that I used is I believe the original posting from 2013, and it’s exactly what it says. Five ingredients. That’s all you need. Ready? Flour, baking powder, brown sugar, salt, and 12oz of your favorite beer. That’s it. 1,2,3,4,5. Sounds easy enough, right? Next all you need is a large bowl for mixing, a wooden spoon or spatula, and a loaf pan to bake it in.

Here’s where it got interesting for me. To start, I don’t own a bread pan or loaf pan, but I do own a set of mini loaf pans from Chicago Metallic that I adore! So that’s what I used. So if you’re in the same boat as I was as far as the actual cooking equipment is concerned, you’ll have to make the necessary adjustments and consider if it will add or subtract in the amount of baking time. I also own a ton of round cake pans, which I could have used instead of the mini’s, but I wanted to stick as close to the recipe as possible. My little loaves took about 45 minutes to bake with 15 minutes of rest time before slicing.

Next was the actual consistency of the dough or “batter” as it’s referred to in the original recipe. I feel that the wording of a recipe is vital when there’s a lack of visual references. Thankfully HBH has several video tutorials out there so you can see what I mean. When I was mixing everything together after being sure I measured everything to the tee, my end result was in between a dough and a batter. I felt compelled to add a bit more water to it a little at a time being mindful not to over-mix the base to get it looking closer to what I had seen in the videos.

And this is why often times, what we see at first isn’t always what we get when trying out certain recipes because there are so many variances that contribute to those subtle differences. The size of measuring cups for example really do vary from brand to brand and not all are created equal. So although my spidey senses told me that my bread base was a tad on the thicker side, I forged ahead and baked away.

Here’s the link to the recipe : 5 Ingredient Beer Bread

The end result? Happiness. I was pleasantly surprised by how these little kitties turned out. The outer crust was crisp and chewy, and the inside of the bread was dense, but soft and almost cake like. A hearty bread for sure. I yielded 3 mini loaves out of the recipe. The beer I used was the 805 brand which has a nice flavor that isn’t too malty or hoppy, if you know what I mean. I served the first loaf with honey, butter, and my homemade strawberry preserves which was super yummy! The bread itself is very satisfying on its own and is pretty filling after a couple of slices. I’ll definitely be making this recipe again. Mystic Meals approved! 🥰✨I also made little sandwiches with butter, honey, turkey, and cheese and it was EPIC! Sorry, no pics! They were gone in a flash! 😋🙌🏼

Half Baked Harvest has a few variations of this bread recipe. In the most recent one I’ve seen, Tieghan is using a darker beer and honey in place of brown sugar, so be sure to check out the site and try the recipe that speaks to you the most. This one seemed to be pretty neutral and again, EASY, which is awesome! This bread goes with both sweet and savory toppings, which is also a huge plus. I bet it’ll be great sliced and toasted with a soup or for breakfast with eggies! I hope you meows give it a try! There you have it, dear reader. Quick, easy, simple, and delicious. Just how we like it around here. 😉 Until we eat again… Happy Cooking!

Cheers, Hugs, and Meows!

xo Nikki 💕✨

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