Luck O'the Irish?

I'm not Irish, or at least I don't think I am, but this year for St. Patty's I've decided to embark on a new frontier...Baking with Beer! I love beer, I love brown beer, I love dark ales, I love stouts, so why not bake with them?
They won't be frosted until tomorrow but the cake is delish! Very moist with a nice crumb. I am by no means a master cup cake baker, or cake baker for that matter. This batter proved no different. It was easy enough to throw together and it smelled heavenly in the oven. I knew I was going to be pleasantly surprised when I tasted the batter and found it scrumptious.
This is not a chocolaty cake, and I wouldn't really say that it tastes like Guinness, I might try making it again without the cinnamon so that I can get more beer flavor. The plan is to frost with a simple cream cheese frosting (you know the one, 8oz cream cheese, 4tbsp butter, a tsp vanilla, 5 cups or so of powdered sugar..just beat the crap out of it until it is the right consistency).

Chocolate Stout Cupcakes
4 eggs
1 cup plain thick yogurt (greek style) or sour cream - they taste different in the batter but its a preference thing
12 oz guinness at room temp (or other dark stout)
4tsp vanilla
1 cup cocoa powder
2 cups sugar
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp cinnamon (optional)
12 tbsp melted and cooled butter

Heat oven to 350
Prepare your vessels (I used cupcake liners this time but sometimes I use paper souffle, also called nut, cups) you don't need to butter or flour these but if you want to make a cake with this batter, grease your pan then line with parchment paper and grease the top of the parchment then dust the pan with cocoa powder (since this is a chocolate cake)
Melt butter in the microwave (don't go crazy here..just melt it)
Whisk together the eggs and yogurt (or sour cream), add guinness and vanilla.
Sift together the flour, sugar, cocoa, soda and cinnamon
Add dry to wet (1/3 at a time) either with a hand mixer or a stand mixer with the whisk attachment
Once all the dry is completely mixed into the wet slowly pour the melted butter in while still blending
I like to use a 1/4 cup scoop (cookie scoop, ice cream scoop whatever you call it, it has a sweeper to get all the batter out) to fill my cups, if I am using souffle cups they get a little more than this but this is the perfect size for cupcakes.
Bake 20-25 minutes - follow your nose, when you smell baked good fairly strongly they are probably done and ready to be checked. A toothpick inserted in the center should come out with some crumbs.
Cool on a wire rack and frost as desired.

If you are baking a cake I would say you probably should start with 30 minutes but again, follow your nose!

That was my fun little st. patty's day tribute for the year. I might still bust out some corned beef and cabbage.
It's been a while since I have posted. I had a fun little adventure teaching a co-worker to make spice cake from scratch but blogging wasn't part of the equation. Hopefully life will situate itself so that blogging becomes a little easier.

Eat up!

(update the next night.. frosted little beauties! One day I will learn how to frost and decorate..maybe...it takes more patience than I have)

The last chocolate standing

This weekend was my last hurrah before really hunkering down and focusing on getting my body back under control. The final straw has been this stint with breathlessness. I truly feel like my body is strangling me and I have never felt this way before. Very scary stuff and completely unnecessary. I am young, I am single, I am available to do things to fix this mess that I am.
As mentioned in a previous post, last week was my birthday week and was feted with all kinds of ridiculousness. It was raining and cold out today so I decided to bake a chocolate cake (my biggest weakness and pleasure). I have not have much luck in the past with cakes from scratch but this one turned out fabulously. I used the Swans Cake Flour Easy Chocolate Cake recipe. I nixed the frosting because this whole mess is just going in the trash first thing in the morning anyway.
Absolutely delicious! Now I need to focus on finding people with a penchant for sweet treats so I can bake and get things out of my house.
Everyone at work has decided to focus on their health as well, so that is probably not going to be the winning locale.
After searching the web over I did not find this recipe, so I am posting it here. It was a light cake, very sweet - I would probably lower the brown sugar if I were to make this again. It was a tender cake for sure!


Swans Down Cake Flour Easy Chocolate Cake
1 stick butter
1/2 c. light brown sugar (i told you it's alot)
3/4 c. sugar (i amended the original blog post when I baked this cake again with white sugar instead of all brown sugar..which resulted in a much better cake)
3 eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3 ounces melted dark chocolate (cooled)
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/4 c cake flour
1 c. sour cream
1 c. boiling water

Blend butter until smooth, add brown sugar and then eggs 1 at a time. Mix in vanilla and cooled chocolate. Then add baking soda and salt. Alternately add the cake clour and sour cream beating until smooth.
Add boiling water and stir with a spoon until completely mixed.
Bake 350 degrees for about 30 minutes. I did mine in a 9x13 pan (greased and floured) because I am lazy and just wanted cake. It would easily make 2, 8 or 9 inch rounds.
There was a frosting recipe but as mentioned previously, I did not frost this bad boy (besides, I prefer my chocolate cake with a cream cheese frosting).

ENJOY!

PS. the bowling party was a hit, the hangover the next day could have been skipped but the night was great. Next year will be the big 35 and I need to do something BIG BIG BIG for that one.. any suggestions?

Okay this isn't about baking..

But the smell eminating from my oven right now is so delicious I had to share it. I spent a good 20 minutes searching the web for something yummy to do with a pork tenderloin..and finally "stumbled upon" what smells to be a winner.

Take your loin, trim it, wash it, pat it dry.

Take 1 cup unseasoned bread crumbs and brown in 1tbsp of olive oil
Remove from heat and in a bowl mix in 4tbsp horseradish, salt and pepper to taste

In a separate bowl mix 3tbsp spicy (or dijon) mustard and 2tbsp mayo (I used light mayo since the flavor will be pretty much masked by the mustard anyway).

Place your loin(s) on a baking sheet (I put parchment on my baking sheet) slather with the Mayo and Mustard combo. Then cover with breadcrumb mixture.

Put in the oven at 450 for 25 minutes. Let rest before cooking.. it smells really good and I had to write about it.

I am still resisting my urge to bake, although I did scour the web today looking for interesting baking blogs and found a bunch that I really liked. I think you can see them on my blog, so by all means venture out and visit some! Once the store gets off the ground I am going to be hosting an entire site with a community area and a favorite links page so that all of my CraftBake customers can have instant access to other CraftBakers from around the globe!

As for the rest of my night.. I just need to figure out what to serve with this pork..and what wine to drink!