St. Patrick's Day recipe: Cafe Pointa's Irish Guinness Bread

You can enjoy some craic on a lesser scale, courtesy of this beer bread recipe from Cafe & Bistro Pointa, a long-time Prague 6 favorite serving an international menu befitting its pedigree: co-owned by Annemarie D’Agostino and Zuzana Mazzoleni the family-operated business claims Irish, Czech, Italian, Slovak, and British roots.

D’Agostino says Guinness bread is a traditional favourite like Irish stew or Colcannon, though if you can’t find a Guinness, a dark Czech beer or porter can be substituted.

She recommends serving the bread topped with cream cheese and smoked salmon and a drop or two of lemon juice. An additional recipe for a Guinness bread with a fruity twist can be found below.

Mix butter with all dry ingredients until the dough develops the consistency of breadcrumbs, add the milk, black treacle, and the Guinness draught. Mix until you reach a wet dough. Bake in a greased bread tin for 40-45 minutes at 170°C in a pre-heated oven.

Bring the butter or margarine, sugar and Guinness to the boil in a small pan over a low heat, stirring until well blended. Mix in the fruit and mixed peel, bring to the boil, then simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and leave to cool.

Mix together the flour, bicarbonate of soda and spices and make a well in the centre. Add the cool fruit mixture and the eggs and mix together until well blended. Spoon into a greased and lined 23- cm/9-in cake tin (pan) and bake in a preheated oven 160°C/325°F/gas mark 3 for 2 hours until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin for 20 minutes, then turn out on to a wire rack to finish cooling.