Chocolate and Beer

Hello!  This is my first blog post and rather than go into a long story about my life and how I got to be here I'll just give you the bullet points.  I love my life, my husband, my family and my friends. I love designer clothes and shoes, even though I can't afford them. I love to bake but I hardly ever eat dessert. I love to crank up my iPod and go for a long run. NYC is one of my happy places...the other is Colorado. I hate summer and always count down the days till the first freeze. I don't function well without Dr Pepper in the afternoon. I rarely brush my hair. I drink beer...the darker, the better. I'm a Razorback football fan. I miss my friends and family whenever they are not with me.  I love the smell of fresh brewed tea, onions sauteing in butter, and red wine.

This weekend, I added the smell of real butter simmering in Guinness to my list. 

You see, while I do have a grownup job to take care of all those pesky necessities like health insurance and my mortgage...I moon-lite as a cake baker.  Some good friends of ours (my husband and myself) are getting married this fall and I was flattered when they asked me to make their wedding cakes.  (I LOVE weddings and wish I could have a full blown wedding event with a different theme every year on our anniversary but Husband vetoed that plan)  I think it is important to incorporate personal touches whenever possible and the groom in this case is a lover of beer.  I immediately started searching for the perfect chocolate/beer cake recipe and I found it at the Smitten Kitchen blog. 

You start by simmering real butter in a cup of Guinness beer which smells heavenly.  I was not able to get my cocoa and beer/butter mixture smooth.  The liquid kept separating from the cocoa (but I was using regular Hershey's baking cocoa so a better quality might work better) and the end result was a little dryer than I had hoped so I might add a little more sour cream.  I topped this cake with a self adapted Bailey's Irish Cream buttercream icing rather than the coffee ganache listed on this site.

Irish Cream Buttercream:

2 sticks unsalted butter
4 cups confectioners sugar
4 tablespoons Bailey's Irish Cream Liquor
1 teaspoon vanilla.

I creamed the butter and added the sugar and Bailey's one portion at a time, beating it until mixed after each addition.  Then I added the vanilla at the end and whipped it until desired consistency.

Even though I thought the cake was a bit dry (and this could have been due to slightly over baking or the aforementioned beer/butter/cocoa debacle) our friends thought it was wonderful and selected it to be the flavor for their grooms cake.  The beer was not overwhelmingly present in the flavor of the cake but the chocolate and Bailey's tasted great together!

I look forward to sharing photos of the finished cakes in September!