So yesterday I was excited to learn that my essay on Late Night Eating had been posted on Smithsonian magazine’s Food & Think blog as part of their Inviting Writing series.  (Inviting Writing was one of 5 Opportunities for Food Writers that I mentioned last week.)  If you remember Late Night, take a look and reminisce with me, then check out Food & Think’s links for more fun food essays on college food.

Three Chocolate Bark with Spiced Nuts and Dried Cherries

Candy was a big part of my youth, and a feature in two of my favorite books. The first was actually a series, The Baby-sitters Club.  I was a big fan of the character, Claudia, a sugar fiend who hid candy bars around her bedroom.  

The other was a book from the 1981 Time Life Series, The Good Cook, called Candy. Here’s a picture of the scrumptious cover:

I spent way too much time obsessively flipping through the first half of this book, which is filled with pictures of the candy-making process:  soft chocolate paste piped into a foil cup, white fondant balls dipped in shiny pink icing, long coils of red and white taffy stretched into long strands.  At the time, these lovely photos must have been enough for me because I never actually made any candy.  

Then last week, I found this book at my parents’ house, and immediately got excited about all the candies I could make. Peanut butter cups!  Nougat!  Triple Layer Chocolate Sandwiches!

But as I read through some of the recipes, I realized many require the ultimate in temperature precision, i.e. a thermometer.  I don’t have one, so making these complicated candies will have to wait.  (Stay tuned though.  I’m determined to make nougat soon.)

Instead, I made chocolate bark.

The Field Guide to Candy says that chocolate bark was invented by chocolatiers who made truffles and other confections, then had leftover tempered chocolate to use.  

It’s also said to be the simplest candy bar to make.  First, melt the chocolate in a double broiler, or temper it.  (Tempering the chocolate requires adding unmelted chocolate to melted chocolate to form seed crystals, which make the chocolate harden into a stable slab and snap when broken.  When tempering, the chocolate should be kept at a precise temperature until used.)  Then, top with nuts, dried fruit, crystallized ginger, peppermint candies, M&Ms, or anything else that moves you.  After the mixture cools, break it into pieces to serve.

For the simplest candy bar, I still managed to get a few steps wrong along the way.  I had really wanted to make nougat, so my mind wasn’t in the game.  But it’s hard to go wrong with melted chocolate – I still ate way more of the rich, creamy bark than I should have.

Three Chocolate Bark with Spiced Nuts and Dried Cherries
Recipe from Emeril Lagasse

I chose this recipe because it’s made with white, milk, and semisweet chocolate.  It’s also topped with spiced nuts cooked with brown sugar, cayenne, salt, and cinnamon, which makes it a sweet/salty combo bark.  (If you’re curious, I’ve written notes about substitutions, as well as my little slip-ups, in italics.)

7 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 cups pecan pieces (I used almonds)
Salt
Cayenne
Pinch of nutmeg
Pinch of cinnamon
1 pound semisweet chocolate, cut into pieces  (I used chocolate chips for all three types of chocolate.)
1 pound milk chocolate, cut into pieces
1 pound white chocolate, cut into pieces
2 cups dried cherries, rehydrated and chopped

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. In a large saute pan, melt 4 tablespoons of butter.

Add the brown sugar and stir until the sugar dissolves and is bubbly. Add the pecans. (or almonds…)

Season the pecans with salt, cayenne, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Continue to cook, stirring constantly, until the sugar starts to caramelize and coat the pecans evenly. Cook for about 4 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and spread the pecans over a parchment lined baking sheet. Place the pan in the oven and roast the pecans for about 6 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and cool completely. Break the pecans into small pieces.

When I made the nuts, the sugar and butter didn’t caramelize and stick to them. So I ended up with roasted nuts and pieces of cooked, spiced sugar. But I chopped up the entire mixture, and used it in the bark anyway:  

See the pieces of buttered brown sugar? They should be sticking to the nuts. But I used the whole mixture anyway.

Fill three small saucepans halfway up the pan with water. Place the pans over medium heat and bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer. In three separate mixing bowls, add each type of chips into the individual bowls. Place the bowls over the saucepans. After about 2 minutes over the heat the chocolate will start to melt. Stir each chocolate until totally melted. Remove the chocolate from heat and stir 1 tablespoon of butter into each bowl of chocolate.

I went wrong here too.  But it’s because I thought the recipe was so easy that I didn’t need to read it closey.  (I learned my lesson!)  I added the butter to the chocolate in the saucepan and melted them together. This worked fine with the semisweet chocolate, but I had a hard time melting the white and milk chocolates.  This looks appetizing, doesn’t it?:

So I added a bit of boiling water to help it along. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this, but wanted to say that I’ve been there in case you too go astray with this step.  Now this is a bowl of chocolate I’d want to eat:

Pour each type of chocolate over the marble or a large parchment lined baking sheet:

The first layer: pouring melted semisweet chocolate

The second layer: pouring melted white chocolate

Sprinkle the pecans and cherries over the chocolates:

Using a metal spatula, spread the mixture out evenly back and forth to about 1/4-inch thick. Either place the marble in the refrigerator or allow to sit out until set, about a couple of hours:

The cooled sheet of chocolate bark

Break the bark into medium pieces and serve.

The latest edition of Dianne Jacob's Will Write For Food. Image from epicurious.com.

A few months before I started this blog, I was thinking about moving to Chicago for journalism school.  I researched the benefits of attending j-school first, and learned that many people recommend an alternative: learn the technical aspects of writing from an internship or on the job, and instead study a subject you’re interested in.

Because j-school is expensive, I went with the alternative route. (Well, sort of – I still went back to graduate school, but am studying nonfiction writing instead.)  I chose food as my subject, and started this blog to practice writing about it.

Now, more than a year later, I’ve realized there are lots of opportunities to practice food writing beyond blogging.

But first, if you’re interested in food writing, I recommend Dianne Jacob’s book Will Write For Food.  In addition to food blogging, she talks about writing cookbooks, restaurant reviews, and food memoirs and essays.  (Jacob also has a very informative blog, which currently has lots of great posts about the recent International Food Blogging Conference.)

Then, when you’re ready, here are five contest and submission opportunities for food writers:

Inviting Writing: Smithsonian’s Food & Think blog’s monthly “Inviting Writing” series is a great way to practice food writing and, if your piece is chosen, gain exposure. Here’s how it works: every month, readers are invited to submit essays inspired by Food & Think’s theme – this month, it’s college food – and F& T bloggers choose a few entries to post on their site.

Anthony Bourdain Medium Raw Challenge: The rules of this Anthony Bourdain-sponsored contest are simple: in 500 words or less, answer the question, “Why Cook Well?” But for the winner, the prizes are big: $10,000 and his/her essay published in a “future paperback edition” of Bourdain’s book Medium Raw.

Creative Nonfiction: For a future issue, this journal is seeking stories where food plays a role. But take note: the deadline is tomorrow, September 3rd. I know, it’s very last minute. But I’m including it here in case you have a great food story that’s already written and waiting for a submission like this to come along.

ReadyMade magazine’s Community Cookbook : When I was a kid, my Mom had at least one spiral-bound notebook full of recipes. This cookbook didn’t involve famous chefs or have pretty pictures. Instead, people like you and me submitted recipes – many that were passed down in families for generations – and a local organization like a church put them all together in a community cookbook. Now the editors of ReadyMade magazine are bringing back this community cookbook, and looking for submissions.  Along with your recipe, submit a short story about where it comes from and why it should be featured in the cookbook.

MediaBistro’s How to Pitch Series: This isn’t a food writing opportunity, but rather a plug for an invaluable informational resource (in my opinion anyway). For the one-year membership rate of $55, Mediabistro.com’s AvantGuild program gives writers access to lots of useful content, including the How to Pitch series. Here, you can learn what food magazine editors are looking for, and what stories they have accepted in the past. Right now, 26 publications, both online and print, are highlighted in the Food/Cooking/Wine/Beverage category.

What contests, submissions, and resources have you found for food writers? I’d love to know what else is out there!

Looking for a new way to use your beefsteak tomatoes?

Last week, I was. I didn’t want to have tomato sauce again, and I’m not one to eat tomato slices or wedges on sandwiches or in salads.

So my eyes perked up when I read a recipe for Savory Muffins with Goat Cheese and Tomato Jam in Beard Bites, the email newsletter of The James Beard Foundation.  Something different to do with my tomatoes! I thought.  I was nearly sold on making these muffins because of the jam.

Then I looked more closely and realized the recipe was submitted by Clinton St. Baking Company & Restaurant. That did it.  Making these muffins suddenly became a nostalgic activity. (I wish I hadn’t chosen to make it for a baby shower though – I learned later that women can’t eat goat cheese when they’re pregnant.)

Yes, Clinton Street Bakery holds many memories for me, even though I’ve only actually eaten there once.

When I moved to New York for the second time, I worked at a Settlement House on the Lower East Side. This is where I met Kenny, and when I had some of my best times in the city.  Clinton St. Baking Company & Restaurant was in the neighborhood, just a few blocks away from the Settlement House.

Like many of the restaurants owners in that area, Clinton St. was very generous, donating both their food and their time to support the adults, youth, and families who came to the Settlement House for services.

And they’re food is also delicious.  For the most part, I sampled it at work events. But when I lived in New York, there was always a long line of people outside on the weekends, waiting to eat truffle fried eggs with asparagus or brioche French toast loaded with caramelized bananas, roasted pecans, and warm maple butter for brunch.

Even though I think Clinton St. is a great restaurant, I have to admit that I didn’t love these muffins on their own.  But with the tomato jam, goat cheese, and some chives?  Delicious.

Clinton St. Baking Company & Restaurant

Clinton St. Baking Company & Restaurant has a couple of exciting events in the future.

On November 8, 2010, the Clinton St. Baking Company Cookbook: Breakfast, Brunch & Beyond from New York’s Favorite Neighborhood Restaurant will be released. Recipes include Clinton St.’s buttermilk biscuits and house-made scones.

And even though it’s still a few months away, readers in New York can look forward to Pancake Month in February. Then, a different pancake is served every week day. Listen to the concoctions they cooked up last year:  chocolate and blood orange pancakes with candied orange glaze and warm maple butter, and fresh coconut pancakes with passion fruit syrup and bananas.

Savory Muffins with Goat Cheese and Tomato Jam

You can get the recipe for Clinton St.’s savory muffins with goat cheese and tomato jam here.

I only made one change to the recipe:  instead of large muffins, I decided to make mini muffins.  Then I topped them with tomato jam, goat cheese, and chives to make cute pop-in-your-mouth hors d’oeuvres.

Still, I have a couple of tips for making your muffins:

The melted butter hardens when cold milk is added; Filling the muffin cups

1) Melted Butter + Cold Liquid: The recipe says to melt the butter first, and then mix in whole milk or half-and-half.  The cold liquid then makes the butter harden (see left picture).  This may have been Clinton St.’s intention, but the butter hardening stage wasn’t mentioned in the recipe.  So I returned the milk and butter to the pan to let the butter melt a second time.

2)  Cooking Time: These muffins may take longer to cook than the 20 minutes suggested in the recipe.  Even though I made mini muffins, they were just beginning to turn brown after 45 minutes.

3)  Taste for Salt and Pepper: As I said, I didn’t love these muffins on their own.  But I wonder if adding more salt and pepper to the batter would have helped.  But if you do under-season as I did, rest assured that the tomato jam and goat cheese make up for it.

Once the muffins are made, the most temperamental part of the recipe is done.  Then, the tomato jam will come together easily.

The finished savory muffins and tomato jam

To Assemble Mini Hors d’Oeuvres

To assemble your hors d’oeuvres, cut the muffins in half lengthwise, spread each half with goat cheese, and top with tomato jam and chives or scallions.

My latest food experiment

So many times I’ve heard or read a statement that goes something like this:  baking is a science, so you should follow the recipe.  And when I’m making a more complicated dessert like pain au chocolat or a cookie that needs to be rolled out like sugar cookies, I do follow the recipe.  (Note:  sometimes this doesn’t work either.  See chocolate pie with bananas.)

But when I’m making just regular ole’ drop cookies?  That’s when I like to experiment.

My latest inspiration is Asian flavors – candied ginger, five spice powder, and sesame oil – which I recently tried to add to an oatmeal cookie.  Of course, I also added chocolate for fun.  And I came very close to throwing in some chopped sage, just because I had it lying around.  (Luckily, I edited myself.  Sage tastes like evergreens to me, and would have completely thrown off the taste of the cookies.  I don’t know what I was thinking!)

I definitely haven’t achieved the perfect Asian-flavored cookie yet so this isn’t my best experiment.  But I also didn’t throw the cookies away – I had one this morning, actually – so it’s not my worst experiment either.  And I can always tinker with the recipe again until I get it right.

What are your best (or worst) food experiments?  I’d love to hear about them!

Sometimes I stumble onto a dish that is so amazingly good that I wake up thinking about it the next day.  This risotto is one of those dishes, and the only reason I found the recipe is because I wanted to cook with squash blossoms.

I was at my uncle’s farm a few days ago, walking to my car with a green basket full of eggplant, squash, tomatoes, and corn.  Then, just before I left the field, I noticed the orange and green blossoms on the zucchini plants.

When I was a teenager working on the farm, I hated these blossoms.   After cleaning the zucchini in a big blue tub filled with water, the leftover blossoms always seemed to get these brown, slimy edges.  When I would reach in the water for more zucchini, they would cling to my hand like seaweed.

But now that I know the blossoms are edible, I decided to pick a few just for fun.  “How do I eat these?” I asked as I plucked a blossom from the vine.

“You’re the one that wants to eat the blossoms,” my uncle said.  “I eat the squash.”

Humph.  Well, I knew I could cook something with them.  So I gently laid the blossoms in the green basket.

But I had to work quickly.  When Kenny and I arrived home, I realized the strain of the half-hour car ride was too much for the blossoms.  They were already beginning to wilt.

So I started researching right away and came across this risotto recipe.  It was just what I was looking for.  I had most of the ingredients already - I love when that happens! – and the squash bossoms didn’t need to be perfect because I would be cutting them into slivers.

It took me a few hours to finish the risotto, but it was delicious.  And not because of the squash blossoms – I couldn’t taste them at all.  (The New York Times Diner’s Journal says that it is easy to overwhelm the delicate flavor of a squash blossom.)  It was the flavor of the yellow tomatoes that made this risotto so good.

But I’m very grateful that my handful of wilting squash blossoms led me to this recipe.  

To Clean Squash Blossoms

Remove the spiny, green outer leaves (like the upper right picture).  Then, reach inside the blossom and remove the stamen (like the bottom picture).

Because my blossoms were wilted, I also dunked them in cold water for a few minutes.  They perked right up.

Summer Squash and Squash Blossom Risotto
Adapted from Local Flavors by Deborah Madison

(Although “yellow tomato” didn’t make it into the recipe name, I added it to the title of this post.  It’s the tomato flavor that makes this risotto so good!)    

THE TOMATOES
1 pound or more of ripe yellow tomatoes
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
A couple of springs of thyme, leaves removed
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
1 tablespoon olive oil
Kosher salt

THE RICE
1 pound bright yellow squash
5 to 6 cups vegetable stock (see recipe below)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 small pat of butter
½ medium onion, finely diced
1 ½ cups rice (Though Arborio rice is usually found in risotto, I used a combination of brown and jasmine rice)
½ cup white wine
½ cup freshly grated Romano cheese
A handful of squash blossoms, cut into slivers (the recipe calls for 20 to 30; I only had 14)
Chopped basil and/or parsley

Cut the tomato walls (sides) into small neat pieces and finely mince the cores.  Put them in a bowl with the garlic, herbs, oil, and a few pinches of salt and set aside.

Cut the yellow squash into a small dice, about twice as large as the grains of rice.  Note:  Here is what 1 pound, 2 ounces of squash looks like:

And here are the squash blossoms and yellow squash, slivered and cut and ready to go:

Have the stock simmering on the stove.

Heat the oil in a wide pot.  Add the onion and squash and cook over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until the squash beings to color.  (I don’t have a wide pot, so I made my risotto in a wok.  The squash didn’t brown because of the wok’s small surface area, but otherwise the wok worked well.)  

Add rice and a small pat of butter and stir to coat the rice in the butter.  Pour in the wine and simmer until it’s absorbed, then add ½ cup stock and simmer until it’s absorbed.  Keep adding stock in ½-cup increments until the rice is cooked, using 5 to 6 cups in all. 

This is what the risotto looks like when it’s ready:

Turn off the heat and stir in the tomatoes and cheese.  Stir in the squash blossoms, taste for salt, and season with pepper.  (I’m usually generous with salt, but I didn’t think the risotto needed much.)

Top with chopped basil, parsley, and, if you like, a bit of grated cheese.

Vegetable Stock
I’ve linked to a recipe for Vegetable Stock before, but I just realized that link can no longer be found.  So here is a new version:

1 onion
2 carrots
2 celery ribs, including leaves
2 cloves of garlic
8 springs of parsley
1 ½ teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 quarts of water (8 cups)

Heat oil in a large pan or wok.

Cut the onion, carrots, and celery into big chunks.  Then add them, along with the garlic and parsley, to the pan to brown.  (If you want a lighter stock, skip this browning step, and don’t use any oil.)

Then add two quarts/eight cups of water to the pan.  Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce to a simmer for 25 to 40 minutes.  Strain out the vegetables.

Recipes of the Nerds from The Atlantic

The New RX: Apples, Carrots, Conversation from Slashfood

12 Vegetarian Recipes to Celebrate Summer from The Atlantic

Playing with Fire: Hot Sauce Recipes from The New York Times

Peaches-n-Herb (Grilled Peaches, Lemon-Thyme Semifreddo, Blueberry Sauce) from Food52

Toasted Oatmeal Topping for Ice Cream from Serious Eats

Vosges Haut Chocolate's Black Pearl Bar with wasabi, ginger, black sesame seeds, and dark chocolate

It’s been a couple of weeks since I made a chocolate dessert – Mexican chocolate ice cream was the last one - and I feel that I’m not living up to the My Morning Chocolate name.  So today, I want to talk about chocolate.  But first, some housekeeping.

You may notice that the home page has a slightly different look.  ”We” (as in me and Kenny – I need to start giving him credit for the all the work he does with MMC’s pictures!) have a new tagline, a new Facebook page, and pretty, shiny icons for both Facebook and Twitter pages.  Please do “Like” or “Follow Us” to get links to our newest blog posts and our favorite food articles, and to join the discussion about everything edible and delicious.  Thanks so much!

And in the coming weeks, look for a new ”About” page and possibly a newsletter with new content not available on the blog.

Now let’s talk about chocolate! 

Recently, I went to Ma Petite Shoe, a combination shoe and chocolate store in Baltimore’s Hampden neighborhood.  They have a lovely selection of interesting chocolates in the back room, and a Chocolate Happy Hour on Friday nights.  (I haven’t made it to the Happy Hour yet, but it’s the first thing I want to do the next Friday night I’m in town.)         

On my first visit, I bought the most interesting chocolate bar I could find:  Vosges Haut Chocolate’s Black Pearl Bar with wasabi, ginger, black sesame seeds, and dark chocolate (55% cacao).  This chocolate didn’t come cheap – my bar cost $8 and some change – and I only tasted a hint of wasabi and an even slighter hint of ginger. 

Still, the chocolate was smooth and rich.  I also loved the crunch of the black sesame seeds, a rounder and more clean crunch than you would get from regular crunch bars.  Now I crave that black sesame seed crunch.

What Chocolate Treats – desserts, bars, cookies, ice cream, etc. – Do You Crave?  Your ideas may inspire future posts!

I couldn’t wait to make peach chutney pizza this week, thanks to my three inspirations: a person, a restaurant, and a peach orchard.

First, there was Aarti Sequeira, the most recent winner of the The Next Food Network Star and the contestant I was rooting for all season.  Here’s a promo for her new show, Aarti Paarti:

See what Aarti’s “culinary point-of-view” is? (That’s the big buzz phrase on the show.)  It’s not obvious in the video, but she’s all about teaching viewers to incorporate Indian flavors into their meals.

This makes Aarti Paarti the perfect show for me. I have wanted to learn how to cook Indian food ever since I discovered the Sunday 5 pound Indian buffet when I was studying abroad in London.  My love for food developed during that trip, and the buffet was part of that.  I remember the restaurant served 20 chutneys in various colors:  some sweet, some spicy, some sour.

And then, on Sunday’s season finale, Aarti cooked an Indian pizza for a demo tape – made with chutney!  Right away, I decided this is what I wanted to do with the pounds of peaches I picked at the orchard a couple of weeks ago.  My first and third inspirations came together easily.

At the same time, I haven’t been able to get the best grilled cheese I’ve ever had out of my head.  It came from The Green Table in New York’s Chelsea Market.  Listen to this description, straight from their menu:  ”Neighborly Farms Raw Milk Cheddar Cheese with Herbed Butter and Roasted Apples on Amy’s Sourdough”. Sounds amazing, right?  What I love about this sandwich is the sweet apples paired with salty, sharp cheese.

So here’s where the all of my inspirations collide: Aarti used paneer cheese on her pizza, but I wanted to use a sharp cheddar with the peach chutney to recreate the salty/sweet flavor of the grilled cheese.

I didn’t quite achieve that salty/sweet balance – because chutney is made with vinegar, my pizza had more of a sour/sweet/salty flavor – but the pizza was still delicious.

And if you have leftover chutney, as I did, the good news is you are able to can it.  If I get back to the peach orchard, everyone I know is getting chutney this holiday season.

Peach Chutney
Adapted from Oprah.com

I couldn’t find Aarti’s recipe, so I worked with Oprah’s instead.

1/2 white onion
2 cloves garlic
about an inch of ginger
2 tablespoons olive oil
5 peaches, peeled and cut into ½ inch cubes
2 teaspoons vinegar
zest of 3 lemons
juice of 2 lemons (about 1/2 cup)
1 bunch of scallions, green parts only
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt (or more to taste)
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper (or more to taste)

To peel the peaches, first drop them into boiling water for five seconds, then into a bowl of ice water.  The skins will slide off easily.  Cut the peaches into 1/2 inch cubes and put them to the side for later.

To slide the peach skins off easily, first drop peaches in boiling water, then ice water.

Finely chop the onion, garlic, and ginger.  Heat oil in a large saute pan, then cook this mixture until it is fragrant and begins to brown, about 5 minutes.

Add the rest of the ingredients, including the peeled and diced peaches, and bring the mixture to a boil.

The peach chutney before it begins to boil

Then reduce the heat to low, and simmer for 20 minutes.  If you’d like to make pizza and your chutney sauce is too thin, puree half of the mixture in a food processor and then return to the pan. (Note: the chutney will thicken as it cools.)

The peach chutney, ready to serve. To make the chutney thicker, I pureed half of it in the food processor.

Peach Chutney Pizza

Pizza dough, naan, or pita bread
Sharp cheddar cheese (Goat cheese or ricotta cheese would be good too)
Cilantro, chopped

If you use your own pizza dough, pre-bake according to your recipe’s directions.  (I cook my dough at 450 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes.)

Spread your dough or bread with chutney, top with cheese, and bake until the crust begins to brown and the cheese melts. (The baking time will vary depending on what kind of dough/bread you use.)

Top with cilantro and serve.

Ever since my family has discovered the food company Tastefully Simple, I’ve eaten a lot of beer bread made with their mix.  But even though this bread has a nice texture – a cross between cake and bread – and is buttery and salty, I’ve never tasted the beer.  

That could be because my family makes their loaves with a light beer that may not have enough flavor to withstand baking.  Still, I wondered, when used in bread, would any of the beer’s flavor cook off after 45 minutes in the oven?  

So I decided to do an experiment:  I would bake two loaves of beer bread with two different types of beer to see how different they taste.  

My two choices? Flying Dog Brewery’s golden ale – a “refreshing, light, warm weather slammer with a flavorful hop edge” – and a porter – a “dark, rich, and malty beer”. (Aside from taste, I love the quirky sketches on this Frederick, Maryland brewery’s labels, one of which looks like a a cross between a Gremlin and a werewolf.)

Flying Dog Brewery golden ale, Flying Dog Brewery porter

Then, I used the Farmgirl Fare blog’s whole wheat beer bread recipe.  In two hours, Kenny and I were ready to sample.

Our conclusion?  

Both loaves are tasty, but neither of us could taste the beer in the lighter golden ale version. 

However, in the second loaf I tasted a hint of that malty porter flavor at the very end of chewing. Kenny didn’t taste beer, but he agreed that the second loaf had more flavor.

Thus, because of its extra flavor punch, we decided the porter loaf tastes better.

I also learned something else about beer bread in the process:  this is the easiest bread I’ve ever made.  With just flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, and beer, the ingredients come together quickly with a spoon. Then the mixture goes straight into the pan to bake.  About an hour later, it’s ready to eat. 

Beer bread dough comes together in minutes, and goes straight to the pan for baking.

Have you ever made beer bread? What type of beer do you use?