A delicious beer bread laced with comte cheese and whole grain mustard. The perfect portable snack for picnics, breweries and more! 
The ultimate tri-fecta. Especially for this here day before St. Patrick’s Day/morning after a night out with some of my besties to celebrate my birthday. I mean, how much better can it get to both recover from last night and get ready for another night of celebrating? (Or, in my likely case, just eating my weight in Irish food?) I’m thinking Pull-Apart Beer Bread with Comte and Whole Grain Mustard, a slow-cooker corned beef recipe (I’m going to give this one from Half-Baked Harvest a shot), some Chocolate Stout Cupcakes with Irish Cream Buttercream for dessert, and maybe, just MAYBE, a Matcha Colada to really round out the meal. Who’s with me?
But let’s get to the point here. I really don’t want this uber-yummy Pull-Apart Beer Bread with Comte and Whole Grain Mustard to lose the spotlight, because trust me when I say it is soooooooo tasty and very worthy of the little extra effort it takes to make.
Confession: I actually copy-catted this recipe from Notch8, the restaurant in the hotel we stayed at when my mom and I went to Vancouver in January. I’m sure you’ve all seen sweet versions of pull-apart bread (like this or this), but this was the first time I’d come across a SAVORY version. As soon as my mom and I saw a menu item that listed bread, cheese, and mustard as ingredients (in the middle of the afternoon when we were sooo ready for an afternoon snack, mind you) we knew we had to give it a shot. Let me tell you. Wowza! It was amazing. I immediately knew I had to try and recreate it at home.
And recreate it I did! I knew that I needed to make the beer bread a yeast bread (as opposed to a quick bread) so I turned to my mom’s trusty Beer Bagel recipe for inspiration and guidance. I then went out and got me some Comte cheese (if you don’t know what this is, it’s very similar to Gruyere… I found mine at Trader Joe’s) and some whole grain mustard. As you can see, the ingredients are pretty darn easy to come by so you really have no excuse to not make Pull-Apart Beer Bread with Comte and Whole Grain Mustard (say that ten times fast) in the next couple of days.
Since the bread is a yeast bread, it does take some time to rise. But that’s no biggie! I have to say that I was worried because my dough didn’t seem to be rising quite as much as I wanted it to, but everything turned out in the end. You just have to trust that your oven will do all of the work!
Once the dough has gone through its double rise, we slice it up (like you would a loaf of bread) and coat the sides with the mustard and cheese. We then line all the slices back up together in the loaf pan for them to rise and bake into each other in the oven. And of course we top it all with more cheese! Not only does the slicing before we bake ensure we can more easily pull apart the bread when it’s done, but it also helps us make sure we get the yummy fillings evenly dispersed throughout.
Okay, before I leave you with the recipe I MUST make a suggestion. Not only is this a fantastic addition to any St. Patrick’s Day menu, we also (accidentally) discovered that Pull-Apart Beer Bread with Comte and Whole Grain Mustard is THE perfect snack to pack for wine tasting. Seriously, if you think about it, it’s all of your favorite wine tasting snacks rolled into one neat little loaf! No need for an elaborately packed picnic basket or cooler when you’ve got one of these bad boys with you 😉 (Side note: I think I’m going to keep building on this idea and try a version with some sort of charcuterie added to the mix soon…Stay tuned!)
So what do you say? St. Patrick’s Day is tomorrow and I know a lot of my peeps out there are wine lovers like me, so you’ll most likely be going tasting sometime in the near future. That means that you absolutely, must, just gotta make this ASAP. You’ll thank me later!
Since I won’t be posting tomorrow, happy early St. Patrick’s Day to all of you! Stay safe and HAVE FUN!
A delicious beer bread laced with comte cheese and whole grain mustard. The perfect portable snack for picnics, breweries and more!
- 1 packet active-dry yeast
- 2 1/4 cups flour, divided
- 3/4 cup lukewarm beer (I used Firestone DBA)
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup shredded comte cheese
- 1/4 cup whole grain mustard
Combine yeast and 1 cup of sifted flour in a stand mixer. In a separate, small bowl, combine lukewarm beer, sugar and salt. Add to flour mixture. Turn mixer on low until ingredients are combined, then begin adding in remaining flour until a cohesive but slightly sticky dough forms (about 2 minutes.)
Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead lightly for about 2 more minutes. Spray a medium mixing bowl with cooking spray and add dough, tossing to coat. Cover with a dish towel and let rise in a warm place free from drafts for 1-2 hours or until doubled in size.
Spray an 8.5-inch loaf pan with cooking spray. Remove dough from mixing bowl and transfer it to the loaf pan, shaping to fit. Cover and let rise another 1-2 hours.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Remove dough from loaf pan onto a lightly floured surface. Re-spray loaf pan with cooking spray. Slice dough into 8 pieces. One by one, take a slice of the dough and spread about half of a tablespoon of mustard on the side before sprinkling it with the shredded cheese. Gently tuck the slice back into the loaf pan. Continue this process until all slices have been covered and added to the loaf pan. {For the end pieces, keep the mustard/cheese combo on the inner side of the slice, as opposed to the side that will be against the loaf pan, so as to prevent sticking.) Sprinkle any remaining cheese on top of the loaf.
Place loaf in preheated oven and bake for approximately 40 minutes. The cheese topping will be golden. Let cool in pan for 15-20 minutes then remove to finish cooling. If not eating right away, wrap loaf in plastic wrap and store in refrigerator (if eating in the next couple of days) or freezer (if not eating for a week or so.)
Wine Pairing Notes: This bread is soooo versatile, it will literally be a great juxtaposition to ANY wine, red or white. The only type of wine I may caution against is a sweet wine. Otherwise, just go for it! All the more reason to take it with you the next time you go wine tasting.
Catch ya on the flipside.
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