BREAD

"The smell of good bread baking, like the sound of lightly flowing water, is indescribable in its evocation of innocence and delight."
- M. F. K. Fisher

A busy day at work today, which started at 7:00 am and did not finish until late. After several meetings and many consultations with staff, we had a delegation from a Chinese University come and visit our campus. They are our guests for the next five days and we have to have many discussions regarding cooperation and exchange programs. The day culminated with dinner, which I hosted at one of the Italian restaurants close to our campus in the centre of the City.

The restaurant is called Spiga and it’s a handy one to have just across the road from where one works. It has a good service and the food is very nice, with a warm ambience and good location. Our Chinese guests very much enjoyed the food with most of us having fish. Baked fillets of ocean trout, or tuna steaks or deep fried Barramundi. The bread served was rather nice and although typical yeast bread, it reminded me a little of some beer bread I had had some time back in another restaurant.

Beer bread is an interesting beast. It belongs to a class of foods that I call the “faker bakers”. These are foods that you concoct fast and without much preparation, but they resemble very much something that takes a lot longer to make the usual way. Here is a recipe for the faker’s bread, which is much easier than the yeast/knead/rise/knead/bake variety.

BEER BREAD
Ingredients
2.5 cups of sifted plain flour
2.5 teaspoons baking powder
1.5 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons sugar
1 can (350 mL ) of beer
1/3 cup melted butter
1 teaspoon ground cardamon
1 teaspoon dried, ground mixed herbs
1 teaspoon turmeric
Sesame seeds

Directions
Preheat oven to 190˚C.
Sift flour (very important!) and mix in other dry ingredients.
Mix in the beer (at room temperature) quickly
Pour into a greased loaf pan.
Pour melted butter over mixture.
Sprinkle sesame over top.
Bake 1 hour, remove from pan and cool for at least 15 minutes.

Enjoy your weekend!