Apple Cider Beer Bread
carrie
Cider, y'know, the alcoholic kind, makes for a great beer bread. With apples.
I couldn't figure out how to name this recipe to make it clear that we're talking about alcoholic cider, not the sweet, unfermented stuff. So yeah, that's what we're talking about. A sweet, spicy bread made with hard cider. Ok. Now that that's dispensed with, on with the recipe talk. I was in the process of developing a recipe for a story for Casey Barber's Good Food Stories that involves Imperial pumpkin ale, real pumpkin, spent grain from said pumpkin ale, and pumpkin-related spices. (The recipe is just part of it; there's a whole riff on the pumpkin spice craze.) When I made that bread, I realized a day later we had an Oktoberfest to go to around the corner from us, so I then grabbed the unused bottle of cider from my basement fridge, along with an apple from Scholl's, and got to work on that, too. The pumpkin bread is decidedly more savory; the cider bread naturally went in a sweeter direction, with the addition of freshly grated apples. Either way you go, you've got a fall-flecked in a loaf pan, people.
Apple Cider Beer Bread
- 3 cups flour
- 1 T. baking powder
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp. ginger
- 1/4 tsp. nutmeg
- 2 T. sugar
- 12 ounces hard cider (preferably one thats dry, as back-sweetened ones are going to make this bread sweeter)
- 5 T. melted butter, divided
- 1/2 cup shredded apple
Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 375 Fahrenheit and butter and flour a 9x5 loaf pan.
2. In a medium bowl, Sift together the dry ingredients (flour through nutmeg), then whisk in the sugar.
3. In a small bowl, melt 4 T. butter and add the shredded apple. Add those ingredients plus 12 ounces of cider to the flour bowl. Stir gently to combine until all ingredients have been incorporated.
4. Pour into the pan and brush the remaining 1 T of butter across the top. I sprinkled the top of this with cinnamon sugar, but demarara or turbinado would work, too. Bake for 45-50 minutes until golden brown on top and the bread has started to pull from the sides of the pan. Remove from the oven and let it cool for 10-15 minutes on a wire rack before removing the bread from the pan to cool completely.