M. Suzanne Terry

I’m pretty sure my mom baked all year long when we were growing up. We always had muffins we could warm up from the freezer for a quick breakfast, and I can’t imagine that we went too many weeks without biscuits or banana bread or something. But I just cannot fathom heating my whole apartment up by turning on the oven when the outside temps reach the upper 80s and above. I cannot take the heat; ergo, I stay out of the kitchen. I mean, I stick around long enough to throw some things in the Instapot or slow cooker or do a quick stir fry, but otherwise, for about half the year, my diet is mostly sandwiches, salads, and charcuterie (whetting your appetite for a future post here).

One of my favorite smells, however, is something baking in the oven. I love that first moment of walking into a bakery. One of the weird, lovely things about living in an apartment is that I get to smell what my neighbors bake, too. It’s a very soothing, very homey aroma, and I adore it.

So by the time it gets cool enough, I usually have a list of the things I’m excited to bake. One of the first things that goes in my oven every year is beer bread.

You can use a mix to make beer bread, but you don’t really need it. It’s just as easy from scratch. All the mix contains is self-rising flour and sugar, and I prefer my beer bread without the sugar anyway. So you just mix 3 cups of self-rising flour with a beer, plop it into a standard 9×5 nonstick loaf pan (or six mini-bundts, if you want to be cute about it, which I absolutely do), pour a ridiculous amount of melted butter over the top, and bake at 375 degrees for 30-40 minutes.

“But Suzanne,” you say. “I don’t keep self-rising flour in my pantry.” Well, if you have some basic baking ingredients in your cupboard (and if you at least keep all-purpose flour, you probably do), you can amend this easily. Just take regular flour and mix in 1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder and 1/4 teaspoon of salt for each cup of flour. Voila – self-rising flour.

It’s also a good idea to sift the flour before mixing in the beer. This helps you avoid a dense-biscuit situation. I faux-sift, and it turns out great. Instead of scooping the measuring cup, packing the flour in, leveling it, and then sifting it, I just spoon it into the cup bit by bit until it’s full and don’t pack it. I never understood packing the flour just to turn around and immediately unpack it by sifting (if you do understand and want to share in the comments, I would love to learn that). But the spoon method has never failed me, so that’s probably what I’m going to keep doing.

Without further ado – here’s an easy way to make your home smell delicious.

Ingredients

• 1 stick salted butter (maybe – see note at the end)
• 3 cups self-rising flour
• 1 beer (I typically use some sort of wheat ale, but feel free to experiment with your favorite)

Steps

1. Preheat oven to 375.
2. Melt the butter. Brush the pan you’re baking in with part of it. Yes, I do this even with my non-stick pans so that the texture on the bottom of the bread comes out similar to the texture on the top. Set the rest of the butter aside.
3. In a bowl, mix the flour and beer.
4. Transfer the dough to the pan, leaving at least an inch at the top for it to rise.
5. Pour the remaining butter over the top.
6. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean (albeit slightly buttered).

Most beer bread recipes will not call for this much butter, but I do it this way because 1) I love butter and 2) I can just eat the bread as is without wanting to add anything to it. I also like the almost-crunch it gives to the outside when you surround the loaf with it before baking. If you prefer a more traditional bread texture, though, simply use unsalted butter, reduce the amount to half a stick, and add the melted butter to the flour and beer when you mix them together, saving a little to brush over the top for browning purposes. In this case, you can also skip greasing the pan (assuming your pan is non-stick – otherwise definitely grease the pan).

One might argue that you truly only need half a stick of butter even if you do pour it over the top. It will still give you that nice crunch. My only concern is…why on earth would you deny yourself extra butter?

What is your favorite thing to bake?

I’m talking about all the delicious things that remind me of home this month.