Super Easy Beer Bread

Last night Grace wanted to make some bread and for some reason it didn't rise.  It got me thinking about beer batter bread, so I looked around online and mostly saw recipes that required self-rising flour which we don't have on hand.  I created this recipe from a bunch of recipes found online.  The results were delicious and the first loaf was gone before we could finish a couple episodes of 30 Rock.  Tasted perfect with the french onion soup I improvised.

The great thing about this bread is that it can be whipped up in no time, and the variations are endless!  The first loaf I made I added 1.5 cups shredded aged cheddar, 1/2 teaspoon Penzey's Chesapeake Bay Seafood Seasoning (Old Bay), & used Penzey's Shallot Salt in place of regular.  The bread baked perfectly, but it was a bit too much cheese, so I'd cut back to only one cup.  I'd like to try it with other cheeses, maybe a smoked gouda or gruyere.  It worked great with Blue Moon's White Wheat Ale, though I'm sure most varieties are fine, save for stouts which have a lot of nitrogen and might not rise as well.

Another option would be to use brown sugar in place of white and maybe bump it up to 1/4 cup for a sweeter bread.  You can also substitute up to two of the cups of flour with whole wheat.

Pumpkin Cut-Out Cookies

We've been looking for pumpkin recipes to try that aren't the standard pie/bread/muffin variety.  Grace found this great alternative to sugar cookies on allrecipes.com.  We tweaked it to our tastes and used her new Ikea animal cookie cutters!  You'll want your dough a bit thicker than you'd roll out standard sugar cookies.

Personally I think the cookies are good enough on their own, but grace suggested a cream cheese/allspice frosting which would probably taste great.  In retrospect we could have sprinkled some raw sugar on before baking, but we'll have to try that next time...