Sometimes, a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do...

I encountered this outburst of testosterone fuelled experimentation a couple of weeks ago, and mentioned it to Karen -- who immediately said that this was something that had to be done. So, yesterday I actually made some of the

Manliest Bread EVARR!!!!!111elebenty!!!!!!1 ^*

Bacon. Jalapeno. Cheesy. Beer. Bread. The sheer awesomeness of the concept forced that punctuation, I swear.

And it was a great success.

The recipe (for a bread making machine)

Bread chassis:

• 1 tsp yeast
• 1.25 tsp salt
• 1.5 tsp sugar
• 350g strong white flour
• 150g strong wholemeal flour

And in the main mix

• 85g of the strongest cheddar I had in the house, grated
• 320ml ale -- I used Greene King IPA

In the candied fruit hopper:

• 4 rashers of thick-cut bacon, dry-fried (pouring off any oozing water as required) until stiff, rinds removed and chopped into ~1cm bits
• As many jalapeno pepper slices as will fit.

Cook on standard raisin bread program. Cool for an hour, then enjoy!

It was wonderfully savoury warm with butter, and made a fine accompaniment to a chilli powered by the fruits of our greenhouse (to the extent of 2/3 of the loaf). Though I couldn't help feeling that there had to be some way to work some garlic into the mix without spoiling the awesome.

^* OK, some pedants will point out that this recipe is just loaded with phytoestrogens. But it's the concept that counts.