Irish Fare

In honor of St. Patrick's Day today I decided to bake beer bread last night, using a simple recipe I came across a while ago:

3 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 bottle beer (I used Guinness of course)
1/4 cup butter melted

1) Preheat over 350 degrees.
2) Mix first three ingredients with electic mixer until smooth.
3) Pour batter into greased 9x5 inch pan, bake for 45 min.
4) Pour melted butter over top of bread (I cut slits in top with a knife to let butter seep down) and bake another 10 min.

The result? This recipe calls for way too much butter! The bread has an almost fudgy consistency, it is so rich, and the taste of butter overpowers the flavor of the beer. Definitely not what I tasted at the Guinness Brewery in Dublin when I went St. Patrick's Day weekend a few years ago, I must say. My advice to bakers attempting this recipe: first melt butter so that it is 1/4 cup in liquid form, not 1/4 cup then melted (half a stick of butter.) That may be where I went wrong. Although the bread is still edible, this baking experiment warrants a second try.