Hello All,

Here is the majestic Begum's Bread Recipe with her own notes for the best way to make yourself be enslaved by your taste buds. :) Yum Yum.

Begum: I'll give the basic dry mix recipe. The variations you can create depends on personal taste; one could create dozens of different breads by simply adding whatever you like to the same basic dry mix.

One could experiment with different beers too. But I definitely like the flavour the beer I use ("Tuborg" :) gives to the bread, so I never change it.

Basic Beer Bread Mix:
Flour: 3 cups (I use either 2 cups of whole wheat + 1 cups of unbleached all-purpose white flour, or, 3 cups of whole wheat flour - like in the bread we had that night at Nick's place)

Granulated sugar: 1/2 tsp (though the original recipe says 1 tsp, I add less to reduce my calorie intake)

Sea Salt: 1 tsp

Baking Powder: 1.5 tsp

Baking Soda: 1 tea spoon (this one was not on the original recipe, but after experimenting I decided to add this - optional)

Beer: 12 oz (355 ml)

Flavour Variations:
My 2 favourites are: (1) flax seed & walnut crumbles, or, (2) flax seed & oregano (this is the one I baked for that dinner). I once added dried garlic as well, and the result was quite nice.

Mix all of the ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Add the extra ingredients (as much you like) before adding the beer. Mix it thoroughly with the dry mix.

When the bread mix is ready, slowly add and stir in the beer. Yeah, the batter will be thick and your fingers will be covered with it. :) Don't rely on the spoon only, otherwise the inner parts of the batter will remain dry.

Although the original recipe says 12 oz of beer (1 bottle ?), for 3 cups of flour I add slightly more than 1 bottle of beer. You can find the right amount by experimenting with it. But my tip is: The batter should not be too dry or too soft. So add the extra beer in very slowly and knead the batter thoroughly to make sure all of the dry mix is combined with beer. Any left over beer? Drink it while you wait.

I heat the oven after I'm done with preparing the batter (to give it few minutes to "rest").
Heat oven to 375F.
I use olive oil to grease the loaf pan (20 cm ones are good for this recipe) and sprinkle flour on the inner surfaces in order to prevent the bread to stick to the pan.
Spread the batter in the loaf pan.
Bake about 45 minutes.
After taking out of the oven, let the bread cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Remove from pan and cool 10 more minutes (honestly, I can never wait this long - cheese on warm bread is just divine :))

Bon appetit :)