alexandra’s kitchen: Flowerpot Beer Bread

Thursday, March 8, 2007

Flowerpot Beer Bread

At Django, a little BYO on 4th Street just north of South, the chef bakes his bread in a flowerpot. The warm pot arrives to the table along with softened butter served in an old-fashioned butter crock. Three years ago I enjoyed my first bite of this unique bread and have been meaning to test the baking method ever since. It could not be easier. Both yeast breads and quick breads bake equally well in the terra cotta vessel, but for simplicity I’ve provided a recipe for a no-knead beer bread. The dough takes no more than five minutes to mix and makes a fun presentation. Celebrate this last weekend of the Philadelphia Flower Show with a pot of this delicious bread. Enjoy!

Flowerpot Beer Bread
Yield = 1 standard 4” pot

1½ cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon kosher salt
1½ teaspoons sugar
½ beer or (¾ cup beer) I like Magic Hat #9
1 standard 4” diameter flowerpot (lead-free)
2 tablespoons butter

Preheat the oven to 425ºF. Crumple a small piece of aluminum foil and stuff the tiny hole at the bottom of the pot. Generously coat inside of flowerpot with nonstick cooking spray.
Whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and sugar. Add beer, stir until combined and place in prepared pot.
Bake for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 375ºF and bake for 30-35 minutes longer, or until golden brown on top.
Remove from the oven and let sit for five minutes before attempting to remove from pot. Meanwhile, melt butter. After the five minutes, the bread should slide out easily from the pot. Turn out onto cooling rack and let rest five more minutes. Place loaf on a cutting board, turn upside down, and slice loaf in half vertically through the center. Holding the two halves together, make another vertical slice through the center, perpendicular to the previous slice to create 4 quarters. Return sliced bread to pot, pour hot melted butter over bread (careful, this makes a mess) and serve immediately with more softened butter. Enjoy!

The Eggmobile

The eggmobile houses laying hens. It follows the herd of cattle, arriving to grass they've grazed on four days earlier.The hens peck at the four-day-old cow pies, eating various insects, larvae and parasites - rich sources of protein - and accomplishing a whole lot more along the way: By eating the fly larvae and parasites, they rid the land of potential pathogens and disease; by scratching through the droppings and spreading them across the grass, they enable the manure to sink into the ground and fertilize the soil; and by eating the pesky insects, they reduce the presence of one of the cows' biggest irritants.

The Barn

Joel Salatin stands in the open-sided shelter where his cows spends a portion of the winter. During the winter, the cows eat hay (dried grass accumulated throughout the growing season), and live on a bedding consisting of woodchips, sawdust and old hay to absorb the cows' excrement. When the heavy cows tread on their nitrogen-rich manure and on the carbon-rich bedding, packing it together, they allow the mixture to ferment (anaerobic composting). By adding corn to the bedding, Salatin entices his pigs to turn the bedding into compost: When the cows return to pasture in March, the pigs dig through the densely packed bedding, searching for the tasty fermented corn, aerating the pile and turning it into compost for the spring.

Corn Pudding