AD | Skinny Booze has been Around since 2012, and are all about finding alcohol with a lower calorie content, and bringing it to the UK market. They do ‘skinny’ beer, cider, cocktails, spirits and low sulphur wine, and the best of all,  they sell gluten free and vegan versions of it! In fact, all of their lager and cider is gluten free, hooray! 

If you haven’t seen in your local supermarket, Skinny Lager is a gluten free AND vegan beer, low in sugar, carbs and it’s only 89 calories per bottle. You can purchase it in ASDA, Morrisons, Sainsburys, Tesco, and on Ocado. Don’t worry if you haven’t seen it down the free from aisles, as most of the time, it’s stocked down the regular ‘muggle’ gf beer aisle.

I kindly got sent a case of the skinny lager to try from Skinny Brands, and it really is one of the nicer gluten free beers I’ve had the pleasure of trying.

Brewed in Hartlepool, it’s a really refreshing drink, with a full strength flavour and ‘hoppy’ depth. I found this beer doesn’t have an awfully yeasty aftertaste, like some which I’ve tried, and it just feels like what I can remember from a regular lager. If you’re still on any slimming plan, but are partial to a beer, then plenty of reviews I’ve seen have said that this has helped them to lose weight. Great stuff. And as always, please drink Skinny Lager Responsibly.

So since I have tasted it, I wanted to see what it cooked like. I enjoy experimenting with different ways of using beer in recipes, so I thought I would try something different to deep fried things. Beer battered fish, onion rings etc… I personally think are so over-used and there are hundreds and thousands of gluten free recipes for beer battered things.

Quite recently, I have been into baking gluten free bread. Most of the time it fails, but I have got a lot better at baking it by experimenting. I’m not expecting a huge Paul Hollywood style 8 strand braided plait, and neither should you, but the smaller steps make the difference. I got given a soda bread recipe by James’ mum, and I thought it was great! After making it, I wanted to experiment with the taste of it and play around with different things. One thing I read somewhere was that instead of using milk, you can use beer. I thought that this was a great idea, since soda bread doesn’t use any yeast, the beer gives a lovely yeasty flavour.

Traditionally, soda bread uses bicarbonate of soda instead of yeast, and you need to use buttermilk to ‘activate’ it and act as a leavening agent. I find that this gives a nice soft fluffy texture. Before you get to thinking that beer AND buttermilk will make this a sloppy beer-y mess, gluten free flours are highly absorbent. Although it makes a sticky dough, after leaving it to rest and rise for 15 minutes, it will sort itself out and absorb the liquid.

For this recipe you will need a high speed blender, as it does involve grinding up gluten free oats, to make oat flour. Oh, and it’s super quick to make, which is what I love about soda bread.

The recipe is below, so keep on reading!

Gluten Free Soda Bread with Gluten Free Beer Recipe

• Servings: 12
• Time: “60
• Difficulty: easy
• Print

Credit: thecoeliacsloth.com

Ingredients

• 50g Doves Farm gluten free quinoa flour.
• 100g Gluten free oat flour (I used gluten free oats and grinded them in my blender).
• 100g Doves Farm gluten free white bread flour
• 1tsp Xanthan gum
• 1tsp Light brown soft sugar
• 1 tsp Salt
• 1 1/2 tsp Bicarbonate of soda
• 200ml Buttermilk
• 75ml Skinny Lager
• Extra gluten free oats for dusting.

Directions

1. Mix all of the dry ingredients together.
2. Make a well in the dry ingredients, and mix in the buttermilk and lager until well combined. You should get a sticky dough.
3. Flour your hands, and gently pat it together to form a ball. Transfer to a lined baking tray, lightly dusted with gluten free flour.
4. Make a criss cross in the top with a knife, and pat some gluten free oats onto the top of it.
5. Leave to rest and rise in a warm place for 15-20 minutes. In that time, preheat your oven to 200°c.
6. Place your dough into the oven, and bake for 40-45 minutes. Leave to cool, and then enjoy!