Baking A Georgian Beer Bread

Today's bread is completely different from what we have become accustomed to. This time we do not use any yeast or sourdough to make the bread rise. We do not even bake the bread with a dough! Instead, we mix a batter with baking powder as its raising agent. This lovely light and very flavourful bread hails from Georgia and is traditionally baked with beer as the added liquid.

While traveling through the Northern Cape recently, we stopped at the tiny town of Loxton, which is a must-see destination. That is where I found Loxton beer and this is what I will be using in my own bread.

What makes the Loxton Beer so special is that it is flavoured with honey and Karoo and Cape Mountain herbs that are harvested in a triangular area with Loxton right in the center of this triangle.

This is what the main street of Loxton looks like.

There are plenty of local goodies to be bought at the charming Rooi Granaat Coffee Shop with some of the friendliest service you can hope to receive anywhere.

There is not a single thing about this quaint town that does not evoke a feeling of nostalgia and the wish to settle right there for the rest of your life. Truly peaceful.

But we have to get back to baking. It is essential to sift the ingredients for this recipe in order to trap as much air as possible to assist in the rising process.

Sift together 3 cups (750 ml) cake flour, 1/4 cup (60 ml) castor sugar, 3 teaspoons (15 ml) baking powder and 1 teaspoon (5 ml) salt.

Measure 50 g butter and put it in your bread pan.

I simply melted the butter on the stove top, directly in the bread pan.

Add the whole bottle (or can, if you are using canned beer) of 440 ml beer into the dry ingredients.

Mix the batter well.

Pour the batter on top of the melted butter.

Bake for half an hour at 200 °C and then reduce the heat to 180 °C for a further half hour.

Turn out on a wire rack to cool down. Let the bread rest upside down as the melted butter will run into the loaf during this cooling down phase.

The result is a marvelously flavorful and moist loaf with a crispy crust resulting from the butter. Be warned, you will have a hard time sticking to a diet plan with this bread in the house!

Marietjie Uys (Miekie) is a published author. You can buy the books here:
You can purchase Designs By Miekie 1 here.

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Jy kan Tuinstories hier koop.
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