I am a huge fan of beer bread. I usually make this recipe with Brooklyn Lager, and throw some coarse sea salt on top for texture and taste. On a side note, this also comes out great with sage and onion chopped in.
Thus: I decided to try making a sweet beer bread instead of savory. I moved from lager to porter to find something sweeter (Smuttynose Robust Porter, which has some great smooth chocolaty notes) which would go better with fruit and sugar. I started out creaming together a bit of butter and sour cream with dark brown sugar; I was hoping the sour cream and the molasses in the sugar would complement flavors in the beer. I also tossed in an egg. The original beer bread recipe only uses beer and flour, but I wanted a slightly cakier texture. From there, I tossed in the beer - using only half a bottle because the new recipe has more wet ingredients than the base recipe - and some flour and a bit of baking powder to ensure everything rose properly. I just got a new cherry pitter (there should be pie appearing here sometime soon), so I tossed in about a dozen cherries to sweeten things up and take down the beer flavor.
Here's the end product:
The result is very tasty, but is more in the "sweet-savory-dense breakfast fruit bread" universe than the "cake" one. I think I could have used a bit more sugar. On the whole, though, the beer and cherry flavors were pretty well balanced and everything came together nicely. Here're the amounts I used, if anyone wants to try this and make edits! :-)
1/2 stick butter
1/2 c. sour cream
3/4 c. dark brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 bottle stout porter
4 - 5 c. flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 lb. Bing cherries
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