Beer bread

Pix for the Catswhiskers who was curious. This is the easiest bread I've ever made because it is one of those no-knead recipes. But unlike the usual no-knead recipe, this one didn't take 24 hours to proof because there's a bottle of beer in it, maybe all that yeast in the beer sort of kickstarted the bread.

I put a bottle of Corona beer in it, I couldn't find Miller Lite or any light American beer at the supermarket and I think that hale and hearty local brews wouldn't suit the cheese in the bread. You can also add in bits of chives, ham or bacon. But I put cheese instead because I have a vegetarian coming for dinner tonight and one of the reasons why I made the bread (other than out of sheer curiosity when I came across the recipe in the Sunday paper last week -- I'd never heard of beer in bread!) was that we could have some with the lentil stew I plan to make.

Half of the cheese is grated and the other half cut into bite-sized cubes so you can actually bite into a piece of cheese as you eat the bread. The recipe also called for drizzling melted butter on top of the dough before putting it in the oven, and that has resulted in a golden brown crusty top.

It's more like a cake bread, like banana bread for instance, than an airy kneaded loaf. There's still nothing like thumping the hell outta your dough when you make bread, but this one was so quick and easy, it may just win me over to no-knead bread.

And that's not the beer talking.