By coincidence I baked a quick bread yesterday and then discovered that ”Quick bread” is this months theme for Homegrown Gourmet. January is hosted by Canela & Comino. So I thought why not enter?  

 By another coincidence, I used local Belgian beer; MAES. Belgium is well known for brewing the best beer in the world (obviously open to argument), although I’m not a drinker of them so I will have to take other peoples word on that. A better known beer/lager from Belgium is Stella, which is only brewed in Leuven, nowhere else in the world.

I found the recipe here and slightly adapted it.

Beer Bread

• 2 cups multi-grain flour
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 tbsp light soft brown sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 14 ounces beer (or 12 ounces beer & 2 ounces water)
• Pumpkin and sesame seeds to sprinkle on topPre heat oven to 190 c.

Combine flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder in a large mixing bowl. Slowly stir in beer and mix just until combined. Batter will be thick. Spread in a greased 8-inch loaf pan, * sprinkle with seeds and bake until golden brown and a toothpick stuck in the center comes out clean, about 45 minutes.Cool in the pan for 10 minutes.

*(In the original recipe it also says you can glaze before baking if you wish, but I found my mixture more like cake mix and no way easy to glaze)

 I was too impatient to wait for it to cool and sliced it anyway, it was really good, the only way you will see me tasting beer.

baked and lovely after

 mmmmmm fresh bread.

  I saved the seeds from a pumpkin and thought they were a lovely touch and really tasty. The reason for the poppy seeds is that I just love them.