Anyone that has ever smelt the aroma of freshly baked bread wafting through the air, has to agree that it is the mother of all comfort smells. It has no equal. Almost makes your mouth water, scratch almost.

The aroma is probably hard wired into our DNA through countless generations of our ancestors eating bread for the last 30 000 years. The Egyptians where already busy with commercial yeast production around 300 BC. Bread remained pretty much the same other than being more refined, as milling improved. It wasn’t until 1928 when we first started to slice our bread, which I might add was not very popular at first.

But today my inspiration comes from those crazy Gauls in France who were the first to make beer bread, well not quite; they used to skim their beer to get the yeast to make their bread rise. Groundbreakers none the less. I love cooking bread with beer; it really does bring out a unique taste. This is an awesome meal on its own, except for maybe a beer to wash everything down of course.

Preparation Time: 20 mins & 90 mins standing
Cooking Time: 30 mins
Oven Temp: 200º C
Difficulty Factor: 2 / 10
Messiness Factor: 7 / 10
Taste Factor: 9 / 10
Visual Appeal Factor: 7 /10
Cost Factor: 1 /10

INGREDIENTS

500g Self raising flour
250ml Beer
60g Margarine
5ml Salt
15ml Sugar
1 Egg
1 Teaspoon Baking powder
6 Boiled Eggs
Bacon
1 Onion
Mushrooms

PREPARATION

Essentially you can think of this as a savoury Swiss roll, so make sure you have a nice clean surface to roll out the dough a little later. Combine the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt into a large mixing bowl. Melt the margarine and add it to the beer. The beer must not be cold, and take note that different beers make for different tastes. Combine the beer, margarine and a beaten egg with the flour. Start kneading it with your hands until you have smooth dough. Once this is done you want to cover the bowl up with cling wrap and leave it on side for 90 minutes or until the dough has doubled in size.

While this is happening, take the bacon and dice it. I prefer to buy bacon and dice it myself as opposed to buying diced pieces, it works out cheaper. Put in a frying pan and cook. Chop the mushrooms and onion up and add them to the bacon. Once this is cooked, get as much of the excess oil out as possible and place the filling in the fridge. Boil the eggs for three minutes and also let then cool off, before you take the shell off.

When the dough is done, punch down on the dough with your knuckles to distribute the air. Cut in half. Sprinkle some flour on the work surface and roll out each piece of dough into a circle. Evenly sprinkle the bacon filling over the whole surface, keeping away from the edges. It should resemble a pizza now. Take three boiled eggs and place them head to head in a line towards the one side of the dough and now simply roll it up like a Swiss roll. Wet your hands and close the ends off by either pinching or folding the dough. Brush some margarine over and place in the oven until golden brown. Let it cool down before slicing.