Secret Recipe Club - Jalapeno Beer Cheese Bread

It's the third Monday of the month folks. That means it's Secret Recipe day for Group C again. Time sure flies. I'm sure you all know what this is about by now, but if you don't, I'll give you a quick rundown.

Secret Recipe Club is an awesome group of bloggers. Each member makes another member's recipe and everyone reveals their recipe choices on a pre-determined day. It lets you discover some new, fantastic people and it reminds you of some of your great, older recipe you haven't made in a long time. Sometimes it's a blast from the past to see recipes from 3 years ago and see just how much your photography and plating skills have improved during that time.

This month, I got to explore Our Eating Habits. Blogger Jamie loves to cook and eat (as we all do). Her blog is full of a great collection of recipes and restaurant reviews from all over Canada and the more touristy parts of the USA. It was a pleasure to browse her EXTENSIVE selection of recipes (so many to choose from) and pick one out for this month. We were debating between her Crispy Potato Skins (because who doesn't love potato skins?) and her Chicken Korma but her Beer Cheese Bread won out in the end. We had all the ingredients in the house and wanted something different that you could make instead of cornbread with our dinner (in that case, it was St. Louis style ribs and collard greens). This was a great bread for dinner and would go wonderfully with chili or a hearty soup as well. We'll make this in the future, especially since we always have beer and cheese in the house.

I made a few tweaks to this recipe to fit our personal tastes, but not many. We used a white/wheat blend of flours for flavor/texture and mixed up the herbs a bit with basil, dill and oregano. We used a sharp cheddar cheese and the New Belgium Ranger IPA for our beer.

For anyone wanting to make this recipe in the future, I cannot stress the importance of your beer enough. You wouldn't use cheap butter when making croissants (the flavor is all butter). Why would you ever use cheap beer when making a bread where that is the main flavor? If you use Bud or Miller Light for this bread (and don't get my wrong, I am a huge Miller fan as far as shitty beer goes) it will taste like nothing. Use a beer with no taste and your bread will have no taste. I highly recommend a strong Pale Ale at minimum and a strong IPA if you will drink it in your household. We just happened to have the Ranger IPA in the fridge, but I would highly recommend the Dogfish 60 minute, Bear Republic Racer 5 or Lagunitas Li'l Summpin. If you're not a strong beers fan, use a Sam Adams at the very least. (For Jamie, with your Canada location, you should really try it with a beautiful dark local beer like Unibroue Maudite).

As much as I like Porters and Stouts, I would not recommend those for this bread. The flavor will be too strong and too sweet for the herbs and cheese. The hoppy nature of an IPA is perfect with all of those things (and if you want a great stout bread, check out my Flax Seed Porter recipe).

Sorry for the rant, but my husband and I are super passionate about beer. It's a big thing in our household. Thank you Jaimie for this great recipe!

Beer Cheese Bread

Ingredients

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 2 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp dried basil
• 1/2 tsp dried dill
• 1/2 tsp dried oregano
• 1 jalapeno,seeds removed and diced
• 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
• 1 12oz bottle of good beer at room temperature.

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit Mix together all dry ingredients and the jalapeno in a bowl
2. Add beer and stir until combined. Quickly fold in cheese.
3. Pour batter into a prepared loaf pan and bake for 40 minutes. Let cool completely before slicing.

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