Garlic and Herb Whole Wheat Beer Bread

Last night, I decided to bake a lemon pie for my co-workers. After some deliberation, I decided that I should really make two pies, to ensure plentiful servings for everyone. Now, most reasonable people would simply commence from there and bake two pies. If you're me, however, you decided that if you're going to double the recipe anyway, you may as well quadruple the recipe and bring pies to other friends as well. Midway through the whipping and stirring process, you will discover that you have entirely too much custard even for your nearly industrial sized stand mixer, and will wind up standing on a chair for leverage while stirring pie filling in your largest salad bowl. You will then soon realize that hand beating is not achieving nearly the required degree of smoothness for the custard, and will have to employ your immersion blender, in a vague attempt to use every conceivable power tool in the preparation of an otherwise very peaceful dish such as lemon custard.

A similar issue occurred just last week, when I accidentally doubled the recipe for my beloved beer bread from Farmgirl Susan's Farmgirl Fare blog (how does one accidentally double a recipe?), and then felt very much like Lucille Ball in the I Love Lucy 56 packets of yeast bread baking episode as I attempted to pour this suddenly massive amount of dough into a single diminutive loaf pan.

What is one to do in such situations? Why greet the unexpected arrival of extra dough with great joy, bake one loaf for yourself, and another for a friend! Such a blessing, this abundance of lemon custard and homemade whole wheat bread!

Garlic and Herb Whole Wheat Beer Bread

2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp rosemary
1 tsp oregano
1/4 tsp granulated garlic
1 T raw turbinado sugar
1 tsp salt
1 T baking powder
12 oz beer (I used Trader Joe's Simpler Times Lager)
2 oz water
2 T olive oil

~ Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Coat a 9X5" loaf pan with cooking spray
~ Stir together the whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour, rosemary, oregano, garlic, turbinado sugar, salt, and baking powder.
~ Pour in the beer and the water, and stir until combined, but taking care not to over-mix.
~ Scoop the dough into the loaf pan.
~ Drizzle the top of the dough with the olive oil, and some sea salt.
~ Bake for 45 minutes - until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow the loaf to cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then cool the rest of the way on a wire rack or serve warm!