No brainer Bier brot - As relaxed as Bier itself

I am trying to cut down on the kitchen paraphernalia as my kitchen is as tiny as a ship galley. For example, I sneak home to grab Vater's electronic scale every Saturday morning because I know he bakes on Friday afternoons. I use a IKEA colander for a sift, a McDonald's free gift of a CocaCola cup for a rolling pin (it makes interesting shapes, you can see the Coca cola symbol on my cookies. Talk about product placement) and a metal soup pot for a mixing bowl.

I rise to the occasion

But it is a losing battle, as I want to try more advanced recipes. Case in point, I needed a loaf pan for my bier brot... and after having a firm talk with myself, I stuck to using my Corningware soup pot as a bread pan. Actually I despaired on whether the bread would rise or it will sit like a flat square cake in the pot, since there was no kneading and proofing involved. 

Our fridge is like a frat party fridge. You didn't see the bottles of wine at the side of the fridge

 I used one of B1's biers for this bread. I opened our frat fridge, hmm, I needed 340ml, so I grabbed his 500ml kirin lager bier. Keke.

This is what you need for the making of the bread. The colander is for the all-too-important sifting of the flour. I forgot to include Mr Baking Powder. Just imagine he is here. Or imagine Mr Plain Flour is Mr Self-rising flour == Mr Plain flour with Mr Baking Powder.

I modified the recipe to my needs. I used my measuring cup to measure 3 cups of flour then sifted it in with my colander into my stockpot (which is my mixing bowl). Then I measured 4 tsp of baking powder and 0.5 cup sugar and sifted that in too. I missed out the salt, no wonder the bread was sweet. I think that the beer is a bit sweet too, so you can actually reduce the sugar if you want. I wasn't very sure if bier foam counted as bier too? Because when I measured only 250ml bier with about 100ml more of foam and poured it in, my dough was already the sticky consistency recommended in the recipe.

Just the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder and sugar). Don't forget the salt!

Already too sticky and wet with 250ml beer and 100ml beer foam I added a tablespoon more of sifted flour.

Mr Bread cooking in the Backofen

 

As I was telling Kamerad, I was very verrwirrt, why the bread was so dense, almost cake-like. I thought it was not cooked but apparently it was. I regret not setting the temperature to 190 degree Celsius as called for by the recipe but my oven is a temperamental one and it seemed that setting it at 190 would burn my bread so I turned it to a cautious 180 instead for the same one hour.

There are some reassuring bubbles in the bread, but I think I prefer the old slap and pound because the bread is lighter and nicer to eat. It tastes really sweet, almost like bier cake. Hmm. It is a time saver so next time if I want to make bread, I will bake it with lesser sugar and sift the flour maybe twice!

Seriously I realize there is no kick. The whole reason why I got so into baking bread was because I want to pound the shit into the dough and relieve my stress. Looking at the bier brot all I can say "oh cool". Damn.

I had deliberated about which recipe to use, the Farmgirl version or the Food Network one but in the end, I took a modification of the two.

My modified recipe:

3.5 cups of plain flour

3-4 tsp of baking powder (I went a bit mad on it)

1 tsp salt (I forgot)

0.333 cup sugar (should reduce)

250ml of beer + 100ml foam (I think you should use a nutty flavored one or Guinness stout. Basically a manlier brew)

leftover melted butter

If you use a microwave, preheat the oven at 190 degree celsius and convection setting.

Pour in the beer into the measuring cup to about 250ml. I think you will probably get about 100ml + of foam. I included the foam as part of the beer. =D

Sift the flour, powder, sugar and salt twice into a bowl, then mix in the beer very slowly until your get a sticky mixture like the photo above.

Dump it into the oven which will be sounding the beep around the same time. And bake the bread for about 1 hour. 

Play one round of Company of Heroes' stonewall (German should be enough), and rut out the bread. Perhaps at wave 8 you got to run over and turn the bread, so the oven won't burn it. =D