Monday, February 27, 2012

Beer & Cheese? No problem...(plus an exciting announcement)

I can't say that this month's "challenge" presented any difficulties for me and Erica. But I don't think we can really complain, because man oh man, the results were certainly divine.

This month, we made Green Onion, Chedder & Asiago Beer Bread while up in Tahoe for a girl's skiing weekend. The recipe couldn't have been easier - I mixed up the dry ingredients in my kitchen ahead of time, and when we got up to the cabin we simply added the cheese, beer and sauteed green onion. After some brief discussion about baking at altitude (conclusion: just put it in the oven and see what happens), we popped it in. About an hour later, we devoured the hot bread right out of the oven - nothing like a day of skiing and some hottubing to get the appetite ready.

Here are some action shots:

Sauteeing the green onions.

Our 2 0z. of asiago cheese, thanks to our friend Emily and the gracious cheese-counter man at Berkeley Bowl, who unwrapped pre-packaged asiago to cut us exactly what we needed.

Combining the ingredients, including the beer.

The final dough, ready for baking.

The beginnings of an excellent fire.

Finally, a very exciting announcement: Erica and I have been chosen to host the March 2012 Daring Baker's Challenge, which means that next month, bakers from around the world will be testing out a recipe of our choosing. We hope that all the daring bakers out there enjoy our selection--we cannot wait to share it with you!! (If you want to play along at home this month, shoot us an email or leave a comment - we'd be happy to share our recipe with you!)

The Daring Bakers’ February 2012 host was – Lis! Lisa stepped in last minute and challenged us to create a quick bread we could call our own. She supplied us with a base recipe and shared some recipes she loves from various websites and encouraged us to build upon them and create new flavor profiles.