Chocolate Coffee Cake

It doesn't make any sense to me when foods are named according to ingredients they don't contain.  Like coffee cake.  I suppose you are supposed to eat it with coffee, but if it doesn't have coffee in it, it shouldn't be called coffee cake.  It's so misleading.

I've been craving chocolate cake lately.  I was going to make a Chocolate - Guinness Cake, but then I decided to use coffee instead of Guinness. So I made a small pot of coffee, used 1 cup of it in the cake, and used the remaining scant 1/2 cup to make the icing.

Chocolate - Coffee Cake

2 1/8 c flour

2 c white sugar

3/4 c cocoa

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp salt

1/2 c veg oil

1 tbsp vanilla

1 c coffee

3 eggs

Mix the dry ingredients in a mixer on low speed, and whisk together the wet ingredients in a 2c glass measuring cup.  Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix.  Grease and flour two 8.5 inch round cake pans.  Divide the batter evenly between the two pans and bake for 40 minutes at 350.

Let the cakes cool in the pans for a few minutes, then turn them out onto wire racks.  When they are cool, cover the top of one with glaze, sprinkle on some mini chocolate chips, add the second cake, and then add the rest of the glaze on top.  

Chocolate -Coffee - Cream Cheese Glaze

1/2 c coffee

2 oz cream cheese

1 tbsp cocoa

2 tbsp brown sugar

confectioners sugar

Chocolate Guinness Cupcakes with Mint Icing

The Cupcakes

2 1/8 c flour

2 c sugar

3/4 c cocoa

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp salt

3 eggs

1 c Guinness

1/2 c vegetable oil

1 tbsp vanilla

Put cupcake wrappers into the cupcake pan, pour the batter into each cup about 3/4 full.

Bake at 350 for 20 minutes

The Icing

Big handful of mint leaves

c 1/2 c plain yogurt

confectioners sugar

c 1/4 c heavy cream

Put the mint in a food process and chop well.  Add the yogurt, mix it up.  Add confectioner's sugar to taste.  If your icing is too thin, add heavy cream and whisk until it thickens.

The inspiration behind using mint for the icing today:

This plant is taking over my windowsill.  And I thought I'd have trouble keeping it alive...I do wish it would put more effort into growing big leaves and less effort into growing long stems...I found a stem that was about 3 ft long the other day.  I keep breaking off the really long ones but it doesn't seem to deter the plant from continuing to reach out.

Chocolate Guinness Cake with Pumpkin & Cream Cheese Icing

For the last...too many years to count, I was able to honestly say that I did not have a sweet tooth.  I'm starting to think that I can no longer say that.  I used to be addicted to salty snacks, like Triscuits. (I think I was eating 2+ boxes a week for awhile) But then one day I discovered that the excessive salt in my diet was causing painful leg cramps when I ran.  So I weaned myself off of salty snacks.  Actually, I think I quit cold-turkey.  Ever since, I have used less and less salt in my food.  Now, I think the only time I use salt while cooking is when I salt the pasta water.

For awhile after quitting the salty snacks, I just didn't snack.  But recently, I have started craving snacks again.  And this time I'm craving cookies and cake.  It's such a weird feeling, after all the years where I could look at a cookie or piece of cake and be genuinely disinterested.  I still don't have a huge love of sugar, and won't eat things that are too sweet.  But I love to have some cookies or a piece of not overly-sweetened cake in the evening.  The Chocolate Cake I made a few weeks ago was probably one of my all-time favorite desserts that I have made.  Last night, as I ate my last 2 delectable Chocolate Cream Cheese Cookies, I realized that I would have to make another batch of cookies today.  But then today came, and I decided I wanted to make another chocolate cake.  The fact that there is no milk in my fridge wasn't a problem...I wanted to use Guinness this time. I also had some little 50mL bottles of Bailey's that someone gave me, so I threw one of those in too.

The Cake

2 1/8 c flour

2 c sugar

3/4 c cocoa

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp salt

3 eggs

1 c Guinness

50mL Bailey's Irish Cream Liqueur 

1/2 c vegetable oil

1 tbsp vanilla

grease and flour 2 8.5 inch round cake pans

bake at 350 for 40 minutes or so

let cool in pans for a little while, then transfer to wire racks

when the cakes are cool, spread icing on top of one cake, place the other cake on top, and then cover with remaining icing

The Icing

4 oz cream cheese

1/2 c pumpkin

1+ c confectioner's sugar

I used a fork to mix the icing.  It came out with cream cheese lumps, which are rather unsightly, but don't bother me.  If you want a smoother icing I suggest you use an electric mixer.

Photo Evidence

Chocolate Cake with Cherry-Guinness Topping

I bought some fresh cherries at Kroger the other day.  So when I was thinking about what kind of cake to make for my friend and I's double birthday party, I thought about Black Forest Cake.  Yum.  I found  cake recipe online somewhere and made the chocolate cake part, then I made a cherry sauce out of the fresh cherries and some Guinness.  I don't like whipped cream, so I omitted that part of the Black Forest Cake ensemble.

THE CAKE

2 1/8 c flour

2 c white sugar

3/4 c cocoa

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp salt

3 eggs

1 c milk

1/2 c veg oil

1 tbsp vanilla

mix together the dry ingredients, then add the wet

grease and flour a 9x13 pan

bake 350 for 45 min

THE TOPPING

2-3 cups fresh cherries, pitted

3/4 c Guinness

spoonful of corn starch

large spoonful of sugar

throw it all in a pot and bring to a boil, cook until thickened

cherry blood...all over my kitchen

I put on an apron to save the white dress I was wearing...but somehow nothing ended up on the apron.

This cake was super-awesomely delicious.  Best Birthday Cake I ever made myself.  

Also, the only so far, but that's beside the point.

It was so delicious, I had some for dinner last night. Before I ate my real dinner.  

I couldn't wait til after for dessert.

Mint-Guinness Cake

The things I do when I've been entertaining myself too many evenings in a row and need to get off the couch and do something.  (Something other than cleaning...I should do that someday...)

Anyway, I ended up feeling the need to bake this evening, even though I was not even remotely attracted to the idea of eating anything that I might make.  But I decided that I wanted to make some sort of a cake. With mint.  I'm only slightly obsessed with the mint plant I bought not too long ago.  I don't have any milk and didn't feel like wasting gas on a trip to the grocery store, so I needed a cake recipe that didn't call for milk.  So, I went with a spin-off of my olive oil beer cake.  I made a Mint-Guinness cake.  With olive oil. 

2 eggs

1/4 c brown sugar

1/2 c white sugar

1/2 c Guinness

1/2 c olive oil

1/4 tsp salt

1+ tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp peppermint extract

small handful of mint leaves, chopped

1/2 c wheat flour

1 scant c flour

Bake at 350 for 45 minutes.

I didn't do anything fancy for the topping of the slice pictured above.  I will probably melt some dark chocolate to make a glaze for the rest of the cake later.  The topping above was just some chocolate that had seized on me awhile ago, and I had stashed in the cupboard to try to save someday.  I melted it with a bit of water and it came out...tolerable. You can definitely tell that the chocolate isn't tempered. 

I haven't quite decided if this cake is actually good or not.  I might just be pretending to like it because I don't want the ingredients to go to waste.  It is certainly interesting-tasting.  

Chili Cook-off 2013

2 years ago, my friend Josh and I entered a Gumbo competition.  Neither of us had ever made a gumbo before, but we threw one together and won the competition.  This year, we entered again, made our gumbo even better, and won again.  A month or two ago, we found out that there would be a chili cook-off.  Neither of us had ever made a chili before.  So, of course we entered.

Our Gumbo is known as Heart-Attack Gumbo.  It's got lots of bacon in it.  We wanted to go for the same theme with our chili, so we named it "Artery Clogging Chili."  It involved an entire package of bacon.  Also, a big hunk of beef, 3 or 4 cans of tomatos, some Guinness, some Jameson, some dark chocolate, some onions & mushrooms, some garlic, and various seasonings.  And we chopped up a little orange pepper thing...I don't remember what kind of pepper it was.  I can't stand spicy things so I didn't pay attention to that part.

Big pan of bacon cooking.  My apt. smelled pretty awesome!

We cut up the meat into cubes and rubbed it and a bunch of beef bones in some seasonings.

The meat got to take a nice bath in Guinness and Jameson.  It was like a spa...for meat.

I set the crockpot on low and let it cook all night long.  It got turned off about 12 hours later, before I left for work the next day.  I added 2 squares of dark chocolate at that point.  The chili took all day to cool off, and I put it in the fridge when I got home from work that evening.  

This is what I found when I took the chili out of the fridge this morning.  Grease much?

How bout a big pile of skimmed-off grease?

There were 17 chilis to taste.

Ours was by far the best.  And one of about 3 that didn't put me in severe pain...

Some happy tasters.

 Unfortunately, we only came in 2nd place.  We couldn't remember particularly liking the chili that came in 1st, but oh well.  Everyone has different tastes.  Maybe ours wasn't spicy enough for most people.  It was spicy enough for me to taste it...any spicier and I wouldn't have been able to eat my own chili!  

We'll be back next year, with an even better chili and hopefully win.  

We want to be gumbo champions AND chili champions!

Feliz Navidad

Merry Christmas!  

This is my 2nd Christmas in my apt, but I never got around to getting a tree last year.  This year I finally got around to buying a tree, but my plan to be crafty and make lots of ornaments for it feel through...I didn't make any.  But I found some things lying around and had a few ornaments that people have given me over the years, so the tree isn't completely bare.  And I bought one garland of tinsel. 

I've been spending my vacation on the couch relaxing and in the kitchen concocting.  (With occasional breaks to go for a run or spend time with friends of course.)

I put a stool in my kitchen last night and enjoyed multi-tasking at its finest.

I was making the filling for Guinness-Jameson truffles and didn't want to just stand there stirring.  Sitting and reading while stirring made the time go by much faster. 

1 c Guinness

1/4 c Jameson

5-7 oz dark chocolate

1 tsp of cinnamon

I put 3.5 oz of chocolate in the filling last night, but when I took it out of the fridge to make truffles this morning I discovered it was MUCH too soft to coat with melted chocolate.  So the chocolate I had melted to be the coating ended up getting mixed into the ganache and stuck in the fridge to reset.  I eventually got to coat those truffles...

A dash of cinnamon on top and...done!

Today I also made peppermint bark. 

Some plain-looking bark.

 And some artistic-looking bark.

I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas!

Guinness-Rosemary Chocolate Truffles

Guinness-Rosemary Chocolate Truffles

Recipe adapted from the Beeroness. 

A lovely blog with lots of delicious and beer-filled recipes.  

Ingredients

1 c Guinness

7 oz chocolate, 70% cocoa

1.75* oz. chocolate, 85% cocoa

crushed rosemary

*I only made 13 truffles today.  The 1.75 oz was a bit more than I needed for 13.  I would say there is enough filling chocolate left for another 13 or so.  So if you are making all your truffles at once, try 3.5 oz.

Directions

Boil the Guinness until it is reduced to about 1/2 c. Remove from heat and add the 7 oz of 70 chocolate.  Stir until melted.  Pour into a bowl, let cool on the counter for a bit and then cover with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge.  It probably only needs to chill for a couple of hours, but I chilled mine overnight.

Use a melon-baller to scoop out chunks of the chocolate and then use your hands to roll them into balls.  This is a very messy step.  I had no idea my hands were so warm...but the chocolate was melting and making a big mess.  I ended up making about 13 truffles and then putting the rest of the chocolate back in the fridge to re-chill.  I'll make the rest of the truffles some other day.  

Melt the 1.75 oz. of 85 chocolate in a glass measuring cup in the microwave for 1 minute, then stir until completely melted.  Dunk the truffles in, one at a time, and use a fork to turn them/get them evenly coated/fish them out and lay them on wax paper.  Sprinkle the truffles with some crushed rosemary.  Or anything that your heart desires, really.  

I'm sure some of the truffles I make will be coated in bacon bits.  

Yum. 

Chill in the fridge.  

Eat. 

Enjoy.

You're welcome.

I had some coating chocolate left over so I poured it over my last slice of pumpkin cheesecake.

As a disclaimer...if you don't like dark chocolate, you WILL NOT like these truffles.  They are a bit bitter.  Try some chocolate with less than 70% cocoa if you aren't a milk-chocolate hater like me.