The best (easy) bread in the world, ever

After my frustrating ticket-purchase-related trials and tribulations last night and this morning, it was lovely to come home to a loaf of home-made bread -- and made by PJ, not me. This is the simplest bread recipe I've found and it tastes wonderful. It's very much a man's bread, consisting of merely mixing flour and beer, although I guess it would be fun to get children to make it (if you're unfortunate enough to have any) and a great way of introducing them to the life-long fun that is alcohol. Anyway, here's the recipe.

Beer batter bread

Preheat the oven to 375F/190C/Gas 5. Melt 2oz/50gm/4 tablespoons of butter. Mix together 3 cups (450gm) of plain flour (white or brown), 3 tablespoons of sugar, 1 tablespoon of baking powder, and 1 teaspoon of salt. Pour in a bottle of beer -- any beer; we've used Heineken, Grolsch, and those quite undrinkable dark Trappist beers successfully -- about 330 ml (a soda can size, for the Yanks). Mix briefly, adding more beer or some water if it seems a little dry. Scrape into a lined small loaf tin -- I use the liners from Lakeland Limited -- and pour over the melted butter. Don't skip this stage; it makes the top all yummy and crusty. Bake for 45 minutes. Leave to cool for about 5 minutes, then remove from the tin. Devour. Toasts well the next day, too.