Coffee

A tiny bit of salt in your pot of coffee is a good idea.

I'm sure I'll post more about my favorite thing about mornings (Other than the smiling or drooling face of my beloved next to me) later.

For now, I'll just say that. Half a pinch of salt makes coffee taste more...coffee-like, I guess. It just makes it taste MORE. Mmm...

Guiness cake

With this recipe, I made cupcakes. I think it would be even better as a layer cake with some white chocolate ganache in between the layers with the Irish Cream mousse on top. Mmmmmm...

1 1/4 cup sugar
1 stick unsalted butter

4 egg yolks
1 Tbsp white vinegar
1 tsp vanilla extract

8 oz (Or thereabouts...if ya get me drift!)

6 Tbsp cocoa powder
2 tsp baking powder
1 1/4 cup AP flour
pinch kosher salt

Oven: 365ish

Cream together the butter and sugar. Make sure the butter is chilled, but not hard. You can't punch wee little holes in ice with sugar, you know. When it's light and fluffy looking, but you can still feel the sugar in it, you're done.

Meanwhile, sift the dry stuff, (Cocoa and baking powder, with the flour and the salt,) in your very favorite food processor by pulsing five or six times.

Put the yolks, vanilla and vinegar in a wee bowl. When the creaming is done, add the contents of the wee bowl to the mixer, one yolk at a time, waiting in between each 'till you can't tell it's there anymore. When all that's in and mixed up, add 1/3 of the dry mix.

Now 1/2 the beer.

Now 1/3 the dry mix.

Now 1/2 the beer.

Now the final third of the dry mix.

Dose into a muffin pan with wee paper cups in them. You know the ones.

Bake for 15-20 minutes, till a toothpick inserted in the center one comes out clean.

Makes 1 1/2 dozen wee cupcakes.

Top with the Irish Cream white chocolate mousse from the last post. Looks like a properly poured pint of stout at the pub, eh? Happy St. Patrick's day.

Success!

The cake is not a lie.

Pictures soon, I promise. Before I forget, here's how to top the best chocolate cake in existance.

1/4 cup purified water
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup Torani's Irish Cream syrup
1 cup white chocolate chips
1 cup heavy cream

put the sugar, water, and syrup in a small nonstick sauce pan on medium heat. Heat 'till the sugar disolves. Stir in the white chocolate chips and whisk 'till melted. Chill completely in the fridge.

Beat the cream to stiff peaks. Put 1/3 in the chocolate mix and stir 'till it's loose. Fold in the second third. When that's completely incorporated, fold in the third third. Put on the cupcakes. It's like the head on a good pint of stout.

First Attempt: FAIL

So I've decided that if I only post my complete successes in this blog, it's not helpful for anyone who, like me, is just learning how to cook. (Or in this case, bake.)

I tried my cake recipe last night for cupcakes. I think it's the right texture for rolls, but for cupcakes, I've failed in a big way. They didn't rise very much, which tells me three things: Not enough leavening, oven temp wasn't hot enough, and the pH wasn't right.

The flavor, on the other hand, was amazing. Extremely chocolaty with the earthy tinge of dark ale. So, while the recipe, which follows, was a disaster, the ingredients will not go to waste.

Here's the recipe, v. 1.0, that will probably be kept as the basis for the rolls, which are to come.

Stout Chocolate Cake

• 1 bottle stout beer
• 4 egg yolks
• 3/4 cup sugar
• ½ cup semisweet chocolate chips, melted in a double boiler.
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• pinch kosher salt
• 6 tablespoons Dutch-processed cocoa powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 cup butter

Oven: 350

sift together flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

Cream sugar and butter together. Add egg yolks, melted chocolate, and vanilla and mix ‘till light and fluffy, (2x volume.) add the flour mixture in 3 installments, alternating with ½ the beer. (Flour, beer, flour, beer, flour. Stir a bit, and pour into prepped pans or cupcake paper. Bake 15-20 mins.

The changes for next time are these: Addition of 1 1/2 Tbsp white vinnegar to the eggs, 50% more flour, and a whole teaspoon of baking powder. The beer does fine as far as baking soda is concerned.

I took pictures. They are to come.

Baking Challenge

So I told my coworker that I'd endevor to make a Hostess style "Ho-Ho" from scratch if he looked at my blog.

I think I'll do one better. You know that drink, the "Irish car bomb"?

I think it'll make a good "Ho-Ho".

The drink is to take a shot of Irish cream and drop it into a stout beer, and drink immediately, before the cream curdles.

Think a porter or stout beer based brownie wrapped around Irish cream whipped cream, dipped in chocolate.

I'll keep y'all updated, and if it works out, I'll tell you how to do it.