Beer Bread

Today I made two new discoveries:

1) My belly is now so big that when I'm sat at my desk at work my belly is actually sat on my lap!
2) Beer bread......

Baking bread is one of those things I've always wanted to try but it sounded like a lot of effort and I wasn't sure if my culinary skills were up to it.  Then a friend gave me a recipe for beer bread. It's so insanely easy and yummy I thought I'd share it with you all. Just a few simple ingredients involved and zero skill. Best of all, as it's an America recipe the measurements are in cups so I can still make it when the batteries in my kitchen scales are dead (digital scales seemed like such a good idea when we got them - not sure I fully thought it through).  For those of you that don't have measuring cups don't worry as I'll include ml measurements too so you can just use a measuring jug (yes that's right use a measuring jug to measure out flour - I know, Americans bake funny, but I kinda like it).

What you need:
3 cups/700ml self raising flour
1 cup/230ml sugar
1 bottle Newcastle Brown Ale or similar
1/4 cup/60ml melted butter

Mix together the flour, sugar and beer and pour it into a buttered loaf tin.  It'll be runny like cake mix but don't let that worry you.  Put it in the oven at 350F (that's 180C) for 40 mins.  Pour the melted butter over the top and put back in the oven for another 10 minutes.  I found mine was still a little doughy in the middle and needed a little longer but I'm not convinced by the accuracy of my oven thermostat so yours may turn out just fine.

It tastes sooooo good - I can see it's not gonna last long!  I hope you enjoy it too. Happy baking :)