SWEET & SAVORY EASY QUICK BEER BATTER BREADS

It is no secret that I love to make bread - and that I love to EAT bread. Any size, shape, form or flavor. However, I don't always love the work and rise times of making yeast breads (especially with a mountain of homework I have to do for my M.Ed program!)

Anyway, as I watch the snow storm of the century coming down outside my window with some french onion soup simmering away; I thought that it would be delicious to have some fresh, hot bread - but I wasn't in the mood to proof yeast, mix, knead, wait for two risings, and all that today so I thought I would make one of my old standby recipes of beer batter bread. One is savory, a basic beer cheese brad that can be made with any number of beers and cheeses (although a lager is generally best). I made mine today with a Samuel Adams Winter Lager that we have in abundance in the drink fridge.

I am not a beer drinker, save for a Guinness now and then; so I have made beer cheese soup, beer sorbet and yes, beer bread with leftover beer we get for guests.

This is adapted from the recipe from November 2008 Cooking Light - they added 1/2 cup of sauteed onion with a bit of black pepper and garlic.

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SAVORY BASIC BEER CHEESE BREAD

Ingredients:

13.5 ounces all-purpose flour (about 3 cups)
3 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

1 cup (4 ounces) shredded Monterey Jack cheese (or cheddar, pepper jack - whatever)
1 (12 ounce) bottle lager-style beer
1 tablespoon olive oil

Cooking spray

2 tablespoons melted butter, divided

1. Preheat over to 375 degrees.

2. Heat oil in a small skillet over medium-low heat. Add onion to pan; cook 10 minutes or until browned, stirring occasionally. Stir in pepper and garlic; cook 1 minute.

3. Weigh or lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl, stirring with a whisk; make a well in the center of the bowl. Add onion mixture, cheese, and beer to flour mixture, stirring just until moist and mixed. Don’t over stir.

4. Spoon batter into a 9 x 5 inch loaf pan that has been coated with cooking spray. Drizzle 1 tablespoon of butter over the batter. Cook at 375 degrees for 35 minutes. Drizzle other tablespoon of butter over batter. Bake another 25 minutes or until the bread is a deep golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. Cool five minutes in pan on a wire rack, then remove the bread from the pan.

Cool completely before slicing.

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Now, here is a great sweet-ish bread made with Guinness.

This is just about the easiest sweet bread I know; it takes precious little thought to make, tastes wonderful with sweet butter or cinnamon sugar, and, as an added bonus, this bread keeps for several days.

A few pointers on making this beer bread: The Guinness must be cold, the self-rising flour must be relatively fresh, and the loaf pan needs to be well-greased. If your self-rising flour is more than 6 months old, add a tablespoon of baking powder.

Can you sub in other beers and sweeteners? Sure. For a lighter beer bread, try using Harp and light brown sugar – it’ll still be Irish. I initially learned this recipe using Budweiser and white sugar, so your possibilities are endless. One caveat: Do not use hoppy beers such as a Pale Ale, as the bitterness will taste odd to you, unless, of course, you are into serious bitterness.

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GUINNESS BREAD WITH MOLASSES RECIPE

This is fantastic eaten fresh, and nearly as good the next day toasted with some more butter. Do not use stale beer for this recipe, you want the carbonation.
Ingredients

* 3 cups self-rising flour*
* 1/2 cup white sugar
* 1/3 cup molasses
* A pinch of salt (roughly 1/8 teaspoon)
* 12 ounces of Guinness beer
* Butter for greasing the pan and painting the top, about 3 tablespoons

* If you don't have self-rising flour, you can substitute using a ratio of 1 cup all-purpose flour, 1 1/4 teaspoon baking powder, plus 1/8 teaspoon of salt, for every cup of self-rising flour. Have made both ways though and got better results from the self-rising flour.


1 Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a 9x5-inch loaf pan well with butter.

2 Pour the flour, salt and sugar into a large bowl and whisk to combine.

3 Slowly pour the Guinness into the flour mixture. (The “pub cans” are larger than 12 ounces, but they have better carbonation, so I pour most of it out and leave a swig to drink. This has never failed me, but if you are a stickler, use a 12-ounce bottle of Guinness instead.) Start stirring the beer into the dry ingredients, and when you are about halfway done, add the molasses. Mix well, just to combine. Don’t work the heck out of the batter – because that’s what it’ll look like – but you don’t want lumps, either.

4 Pour into the loaf pan to no more than 2/3 full. Pop into the oven immediately and bake for 50 minutes. Since ovens can vary, check the bread after 40 minutes and see if a toothpick inserted into the deepest part of the loaf comes out clean. If it does, you’re done.

5 Let the loaf cool a bit, maybe 5 minutes, and then turn it out onto a rack. Paint it with lots of soft butter, which will melt as you go.


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Ecuador's Día de los Difuntos or Day of the Dead, Guaguas de Pan and Colada Morada

A vendor selling guaguas de pan or 'bread babies', traditional food for el dia de los difuntos (Day of the Dead)

"guagua" (pronounced wa-wa) is indigenous Quechuan word, not to be confused with Cuban guagua which is onomatopoetic word derived from the sound of old Havana busses


Día de los Difuntos (also known as Finados), or Day of the Dead, is without a doubt one of the most important and highly respected days in the Ecuadorian highlands, taking place on November 2nd.

This is the day when families celebrate the spirits of their ancestors through elaborate gestures such as the sharing of food, drink, and good conversation with the deceased.

Celebrated throughout Latin America as a result of the combination between indigenous beliefs and Catholic religion, the Day of the Dead takes place on November 2 around the continent.

In Ecuador the holiday is interpreted as a day to “catch up” with the ones who are no longer with us but have a life in a different world. People pack lunches of traditional food, flowers and offerings and head for the cemeteries where they spend the day as a family talking, eating and performing routine maintenance on the grave site.

The staple food of the season is the famous colada morada, a thick purple drink, and guaguas de pan, sweet bread in shape of dolls.

Traditional guagua de pan and colada morada

Weeks before the holiday supermarkets and bakeries begin selling the ingredients and store-made versions of the drink and breads. Colada morada is made out of black corn flour, blueberries, blackberries, cinnamon, and pineapple, among other ingredients that are cooked together and served hot or cold with the sweet bread.

To some people the purple/red drink symbolizes blood, which in turn symbolizes life of the ones how have moved on from this existence.

There are as many versions of colada morada and guaguas de pan recipes as there are households, because whether a family visits their long-time gone relatives at cemeteries or not, the great majority of Ecuadorians will taste their version of the traditional food.

The tradition of spending the day at cemeteries has declined in urban areas of Ecuador, however once you leave the city behind it is easy to find entire communities mingling at the local cemetery for the occasion.

My neighbor is from Ecuador and he is always eager to share his culinary culture with us and we have had many delicious dishes that he has made through the year from Ecuador.

This holiday was no different, as he and his family were over to share in our annual Halloween Kids Dinner (he has two sons, 3 and 5 yeas of age) and he wanted to share his own custom of drinking colada morada and eating guaguas de pan.

Both were truly delicious – the colada morada was SOOO delicious and I thought the guaguas de pan were very good too – but he was disappointed as it had turned out more like a baking soda biscuit than bread as was the traditional guaguas de pan. It was the first time he had made the guaguas de pan and I have to say – it really was delicious.

Of course, my culinary curiosity was piqued and so I did some research and I managed to find a couple of recipes for guaguas de pan online – in Spanish.

It was pretty simple to translate and once I got through the metric to imperial conversion; I was set to try my hand at the guaguas de pan.

My neighbor had made us the colada morada and guaguas de pan on the Sunday after Halloween and the actual Día de los Difuntos was on Monday.

I ran home after work on Monday night and went to work on making the guaguas de pan.

Guaguas de pan are 'bread babies'. (The word guagua, pronounced wa-wa, is Quechuan.) Some families make their own guaguas de pan at home, but most buy them from the panaderías, or bakeries, which only make them during this time of the year. These bread babies can be up to 12 inches long and are shaped with a ball of dough for the head and a long, tapering ball of dough for the body. They are decorated with icing and may have jam or some other sweet inside.

My first guaguas de pan

The recipe is really a basic one and I think easy enough for anyone to try.


GUAGUAS DE PAN RECIPE (pronounced 'wawas')

Yield: 6 guaguas de pan about 6-7 inches long.


INGREDIENTS:

2.2 lbsall-purpose flour
1 1/3 cup evaporated milk
2 tablespoons of salt
¼ cup of sugar
1 1/3 cup of butter, soft, room temperature
4 eggs
3 packs of rapid rise yeast


1 round tin of Goya Guava Paste - 21 oz.. Pasta de Guayaba

(You can also use your favorite jelly)

FOR ICING:

Colored royal icing (or I used Betty Crocker colored Cookie Decorating Icing)

INSTRUCTIONS:


1. Mix flour, sugar, yeast and salt together in a bowl.

2. Make a well with the flour, put in the softened butter and mix well, it should look like cornmeal.

3. In a bowl put the eggs, milk, yeast, and mix well and gradually add the dry ingredients and mix well until it gathers into a soft ball of dough.

4. Knead the dough on an unfloured surface until the dough is spongy and elastic.

5. Separate the dough into six equal parts, form into balls and let rise covered with plastic for 30 minutes or until doubled in volume (1 hour is using regular and not rapid rise yeast).

6. Roll each ball out into an egg-shaped oval to about ¼ inch to ½ inch thick.

7. Lay cut strips of guava paste in the center and seal dough around the paste.

8. Lay seam side down and shape into guagua or baby shape.

9. Let rise covered with plastic for about 30 minutes

10. Brush with glaze of one beaten egg and add raisins for eyes and nose.

12. Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes until brown and shiny.

13. Let cool for an hour and then frost with icing in bright colors.



COLADA MORADA


The colada morada (translated as the purple colada) is a drink made from cooking blackberries, blueberries, cinnamon, cloves, and other fruits and spices with a little oatmeal in the water until thick. The drink is then blended until smooth. From the middle of October until the second of November, cafés and restaurants try to outdo each other in offering the best guaguas de pan and coladas moradas.

colada morada ingredients ready to cook

COLADA MORADA RECIPE


Recipes for colada morada can vary from region to region and family to family. While all versions contain the purple corn flour called 'harina de maiz negro' (cornstarch can substitute in a pinch) blueberry, blackberry, and pineapple, some will use naranjilla juice (an Andean fruit), babaco (champagne fruit), strawberries, and even raisins.


Tea Ingredients:

½ bundle of spices for colada morada (5-6 orange leaves, 1 fistful each of lemon verbena and myrtle)
6-8 whole cloves
6-8 whole allspice
4-5 cinnamon sticks
1-2 ishpingo (Ecuadorian cinnamon)**

1. Fill a large Dutch oven halfway with water (approximately 2 liters).
2. Place the spices in the water. Boil for about 15 minutes. Set this tea aside to be used later.

Juice base ingredients:

1 ½ pounds blueberries, rinsed of any impurities
2 pounds blackberries (boysenberries can also be used, or any combination of the two)
1 large pineapple, peeled and cored*
2 cups (or more) sugar
2-3 heaping tablespoons purple corn flour (or cornstarch)

1. Put the blueberries in a large pot and cover with water. Bring to a roiling boil for 5-10 minutes. Set aside to cool.

2. As the blueberry juice cools, blend the blackberries with a couple of cups of water. Strain the juice and set aside.

3. Cut the pineapple into small cubes.

4. Once the blueberry mixture is cool, blend it and strain it. Mix the blueberry and blackberry juices with the tea of spices above. (Divide into two Dutch ovens for easier handling.)

5. Add the pineapple and boil for about 20 minutes, or until the pineapple is soft but not mushy.

6. After the pineapple is cooked, add about 1 cup of sugar to each pot. Let dissolve and taste, adding more sugar if needed. (The amount of sugar needed will depend on how ripe the fruits are. Adjust the sugar levels to taste.)

7. Put 2-3 heaping tablespoons of purple corn flour in a glass of cold water. Stir and dissolve the purple corn flour and then add half of the mixture to each Dutch oven. Stir for about 5-10 minutes more, allowing the colada to thicken. Adjust the amount of purple corn flour as needed (more for a thicker colada).

Serve the colada warm or cold. 

colada morada - hot and delicious!

 Ecuadorians will eat colada with guaguas de pan, soft bread loaves shaped in the form of babies (guagua meaning baby in Quechua), filled with chocolate or marmalade, and decorated with frosting on top. In place of guaguas, any soft dipping bread will do.


* Other fruits can be added to colada morada, such as strawberries or babaco. If adding babaco, add at the same time as the pineapple. If using strawberries, add the fruit in the last step, cooking for about 5 minutes.

**Ishpingo is the Quechua word for the native Ecuadorian "Cinnamon" tree Ocotea quixos (Lauraceae), found only in a small region of Amazonian Ecuador and Colombia. It is in the same family (Lauraceae) as the common Cinnamon and has a similar aroma. It has been used locally as a spice and flavoring agent since pre-European times.