Beer Bread

I first had beer bread at my brother's house at least a year ago. I remembered it was good and so decided to try making some myself tonight.

Ingredients
3 cups flour (sifted)
3 teaspoons baking powder (omit if using Self-Rising Flour)
1 teaspoon salt (omit if using Self-Rising Flour)
1/4 cup sugar
1 (12 ounce) can beer
1/2 cup melted butter (1/4 cup will do just fine)

Optional Ingredients
Any spices you like.
I added oregano and garlic powder.

Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Mix dry ingredients and beer. (and butter if soft crust desired)
Pour into a greased loaf pan.
Pour melted butter over mixture if crispy crust desired.
Bake 1 hour, remove from pan and cool for at least 15 minutes.


For the beer, I used an irish red. I didn't have any self-rising flour, so I went the baking powder and salt route (as listed above). I also put about 2/3 of the butter in the mixer while it was mixing, and saved the rest out to pour over the dough in the bread pan before baking; one of the websites I was referring to said this would make the crust nice and crispy. Yum!!

Note: I used a glass bread pan; they absorb heat evenly and hold that heat evenly around bread loaves as they bake. I greased the pan with olive oil using a misto sprayer.

Banana Muffins

I had 3 mushy bananas sitting on my counter this afternoon. I don't much like eating raw bananas when they've gotten to the mushy stage. I was on a banana kick for a while there but I must have forgotten to eat them and once they're past they're prime they're not so appetizing anymore, so I decided to make some muffins.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 large bananas, mashed
3/4 cup white sugar
1 egg
1/3 cup butter, melted (p.s. I didn't melt it and it was fine)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Coat muffin pans with non-stick spray, or use paper liners, or silicone muffin cups.

Combine bananas, sugar, egg, and melted butter in a large bowl. Then add in the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Mix until smooth. Scoop into muffin pans.

Bake in preheated oven. Bake mini muffins for 10 to 15 minutes, and large muffins for 25 to 30 minutes. Muffins will spring back when lightly tapped.

LoseIt calculates the calories at 187 per muffin if you make 12 muffins from this recipe.

Update:
Check them out with fresh blueberries dropped into the top after filling the muffin cups! Yum!

Whole Wheat Muffins

I am trying to incorporate more whole grains into my diet for better health. This recipe for whole wheat muffins uses half white flour and half whole wheat. I decided to make these tonight because my niece gave me some silicone muffin cups for Christmas and I wanted to try them out. No more scrubbing muffin pans for me!

Ingredients
* 1 cup all-purpose flour
* 1 cup whole wheat flour
* 1/2 cup white sugar
* 3 teaspoons baking powder
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 3/4 cup milk
* 1/3 cup vegetable oil
* 1 egg

Directions
1. Heat oven to 400 degrees F (205 degrees C). Grease bottoms only of 12 muffin cups or line with baking cups.
2. In a medium bowl, combine flours, sugar, baking powder and salt; mix well. In a small bowl, combine milk, oil and egg; blend well.
3. Fill cups 2/3 full. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 1 minute before removing from pan. Serve warm.


I calculated the nutrition info for this using the loseit! app, note that this is assuming nonfat milk:

These were really great warm out of the oven. I used a little yogurt spread, and voila, yum!