Guinness Chocolate Cake with Baileys Frosting

Chocolate cake is not my friend.  Really, it's cakes in general--I find them all rather temperamental, moody little things that throw a fit and refuse to come out right if I mis-measure by even a quarter of a teaspoon.  

Actually, strike that.  I have measured and followed a recipe exactly, sifting when sifting is required, counting hand strokes for mixing (really) and carefully making the high altitude adjustments and I still don't have a chocolate cake recipe that I adore except my favorite chocolate ganache cake which starts with a box mix.  

Recently, I embarked on a journey to find the PERFECT homemade chocolate cake recipe.  I started with a recipe for Chocolate Heaven cake from the Back in the Day Bakery.  Five star bakery in Savannah, five star cookbook, and rave reviews for this cake, I was sure I'd finally found the go-to cake recipe.  

Cake flour, eggs and sour cream and room temp and unsweetened chocolate bars...you would think this recipe is on it's way to the winners list. 

I always give myself a pat on the back when I use more than one pan for a cake. 

And then an extra pat on the back when I pull out a pastry bag and pipe anything.  Piping is sometimes fun, sometimes annoying.

Alas, I was able to screw up a cake recipe that everyone else seems to be able to nail.  My version was dense, not chocolatey enough, and well, dense.  Maybe the problem is that I expect cakes to be fluffy.

Chocolate cake number two was a Pinterest recipe that was touted to be the world's best sour cream chocolate cake.  

Surely cream cheese buttercream (yes both) chocolate frosting is the secret to perfect chocolate cake.  

Or not.  This cake was a  lot fluffier but that frosting was killer sweet and there definitely wasn't enough chocolate in the cake or the frosting.  It was more like a "kind-of chocolate" cake.  

I should have mentioned that the chocolate cake by which I gauge all other cakes is Cheesecake Factory's Chocolate Tower Truffle cake which is probably more truffle than cake.  

Strike two. 

After all of the effort of the two prior chocolate cakes, I went back to one of my standards--Nigella's Guinness chocolate cake.  I would categorize this as an overall fantastic cake rather than a fantastic chocolate cake.

Best part is that it's super simple and made right in the saucepan.

I know I posted this recipe 4 years ago when I made it into Irish Car Bomb cupcakes, but while not the perfect truffle-like chocolate cake, it's a pretty delicious cake....definitely a keeper recipe for when you want to throw together something super quick and easy.

Only one saucepan and  one baking pan to clean up.

Chocolate Guinness Cake
Adapted from Nigella Lawson Feast

1 cup Guinness stout
1 stick unsalted butter, sliced
¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1.5 cups sugar
¾ cup sour cream
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2.5 teaspoons baking soda

Baileys frosting
-8 ounce cream cheese
-1 cup confectioners’ sugar
½ cup Baileys

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9-inch springform pan and line bottom with parchment paper.
2. Pour Guinness into a large saucepan, add butter and heat until melted. Whisk in cocoa powder and sugar. In a small bowl, beat sour cream with eggs and vanilla and then pour into brown, buttery, beery mixture and finally whisk in flour and baking soda.
3. Pour cake batter into greased and line pan and bake for 45 minutes to an hour. Leave to cool completely in the pan on a cooling rack.
4. When cake is cold, gently peel off parchment paper and transfer to a platter or cake stand.
5. Place cream cheese and confectioners’ sugar in a mixing bowl, and whip with an electric beater, until smooth
6. Add cream and beat again until you have a spreadable consistency.
7. Ice top of cake, starting at middle and fanning out, so that it resembles the frothy top of the famous pint.

Chocolate Strawberry Leibniz S'mores

S'mores are one of those great outdoors requirements and seemingly universal loves.  I don't like them.  For some reason, I spent a lot of my life hiding this fact....do you have any idea what stigma disliking s'mores can cast upon a child? I hid it for a long time.  Sure, I'd accept s'mores but when no one was looking, I'd throw them in the fire.  

As an adult I finally came to accept that it was okay to not like Hershey's milk chocolate or graham crackers.  I would willingly forgo all chocolate before eating milk chocolate.   You can throw Nutella in that category too to understand the pressure I feel with my apparently weird dislikes.  I however, learned to embrace my uniqueness and stood my ground when s'mores pushers tried to get me to cave.  Nope, just ooey, gooey roasted marshmallows for me. 

Recently the bazillion different s'mores ideas on Pinterest alone made me realize that there could be more to s'mores than graham crackers and Hershey's chocolate.  Interesting. 

 I think after a bit of experimenting, I now like s'mores.  Of course anything probably tastes pretty good after a long morning of this...

I really do love snowshoeing, I just forgot how much I disliked walking uphill.  A couple celebrating their 50th anniversary passed me going up the trail.  True enough.  As I gasped for air and cursed altitude, this sweet little couple breezed past me with smiles on their face.  Smiling while hiking uphill at altitude...funny right?  There is a special Colorado type that has evolved to live without requiring oxygen but I am not one them.

The views were all worth it though and there was still a good bit of snow up at 10,000 feet. 

 After all that uphill walking torture, s'mores in front of a roaring fire were actually quite awesome.

When I realized you could mix up the s'more's layers (duh right?), I grabbed my favorite Leibniz cookies.  Have you had these?  The Dark Choco Leibniz are absolutely my favorite cookie in the whole big wide world.  The chocolate is dark without being bitter and paired with the biscuit makes the perfectly not-too-sweet cookie.  Heaven will be full of Choco Leibniz.   The plain Leibniz cookies made a great graham cracker replacement.

See how perfect Choco Leibniz are? I think it's all about the chocolate to cookie ratio.

  They don't even need marshmallows.  

But I did give them a try with marshmallows...I think they need two marshmallows because that's a lot of chocolate.  

Since the chocolate seemed a bit much for s'mores, I  moved on to the plain Leibniz cookies, added just one square of dark chocolate, marshmallows and sliced strawberries.  I'm not sure if it qualifies as a s'more but dark chocolate and strawberries can never be wrong.  And when s'mores pushers come at me next time, I'll feel prepared with my new knowledge that Leibniz make great s'mores.  

I would never throw this s'more in the fire.  

Pie Iron Croque Madame

I didn't really go camping, but I believe that anytime there's a fire and the great outdoors involved, a pie iron is justified.  There's just something about cooking dinner over hot coals and a open flame that's just so very Laura Ingalls Wilder and we never get enough Laura. 

Our weekend in the mountains was a fantastic little getaway.  It started off with a bit of a freak gasoline fight accident (Zoolander anyone?).  While filling up the tank during a little Denver spring snowstorm extraordinaire, I heard the gas pump click signaling the tank was full, and then watched the gas come flying out of the tank.  It took me a good bit of time and many gallons of flying gas while I was flinging the pump around (Zoolander, seriously) to figure out how to manually force it to stop.  Needless to say, the drive up was a smelly nightmare but it only got better after that.  

This isn't the cabin I stayed at but every time I drive by I kind of want to stop and go inside. That's the sometimes elusive Longs Peak behind the cloud.

Someone at work asked if I was snowshoeing into a cabin.  Ha, ha.  HA. I knew I wasn't traveling light but even I was a little surprised at my ability to fill up my cargo area.  Yes, I love my Lands End monogrammed canvas totes and storage totes.  Life feels more organized when there's a specific tote for everything...no packing and unpacking...just grab the tote you need.  They also make crazy sturdy market bags for those of us who would choose to load up one extra-almost-impossible-to-carry-heavy large bag over making multiple trips from the car to the house with the groceries.  I like the Lands End one a bit more than the LL Bean version because there are pockets galore inside of the LE totes.  

In my defense here, some of this is food, firewood and snow clothes.  Snow clothes, boots and snowshoes take up a lot of room.  

And oh yeah, there might be a pie iron somewhere in here.  I have the sturdy cast iron ones and the lightweight Coleman aluminum ones.  While the cast iron ones feel better and are higher quality, I often grab the Coleman ones.  You need lightweight when you take a 4 day weekend with as much stuff as I packed up. 

The Coleman pie irons are a perfect weight for sandwiches or something that cooks up pretty quickly.  

I probably don't need to really explain how to make these little Croque Madames, but you just butter the bread, lay it buttered side out, top with gruyere (the absolute best cheese in the world), sliced ham, another slice of gruyere and then another slice of buttered bread, butter side out. Close and clamp the pie iron and cut all around to remove overhanging bread. I like to use bigger bread here so there is overhang to crimp together and cut off. 

When the sandwich is all toasty brown and the cheese melted through, you just top it with a fried egg.  Or if you prefer your croques to be monsieur's instead of madames, and you camp with béchamel sauce, well Mazel Tov.  Top that sandwich with some béchamel.

If you've never had a Croque Madame, it's not dissimilar to some Eggs Benedict minus the hollandaise.  And poached egg.  And with the addition of cheese.  So really the same at all, but yummy nonetheless.   While it's not as schmance as a Croque Madame served in Paris cafe by a fantastically chic waiter, it's not so bad served up with a cappuccino and eaten in the clean cool mountain air.

This was one of my favorite spots of the trip.  Why are adirondack chairs on cabin decks so darned comfortable?  It was the perfect spot for a little quiet time in the morning, and to unwind with a book after a day of hiking and snowshoeing.

And with this view?  Seriously, PERFECT. 

This one didn't find it as relaxing as she was on full lookout for her nemesis.  

They were all around us.  The elk were indeed terrified of my little 18 lb terror. 

No Knead Potato Bread and a Life Off-Grid

Anyone who knows me knows I love hyperbole.  The more ridiculous I can make something sound, the more I appreciate it.  Like me saying I'm going off-grid.

Off-grid usually means self-sustaining, hunting types who don't have electricity running to their homes...i.e off the power grid.   That sounds pretty cool, but in my case, off-grid means a long weekend in the mtns in a cabin without wifi or TV but full electricity and amenities. It means a car full of groceries I hunted at the grocery store and firewood that someone that is not me chopped.

Bread doesn't fit into the above at all but I'm all about lean efficiency.  One post, two topics.  This second topic is pretty spectacular if you're not on the wheat belly or wheat brain or wheat whatever diet.  

I am not.  I love bread.

And of course, I love no knead bread baked up in the cast iron pan.  This one is yet another variation of the recipe I've posted many times except that the star of this loaf is mashed potatoes.  Bread and mashed potatoes--happy post indeed. 

The core no knead recipe calls for a wet dough and letting it sit overnight.  This one looks a bit wetter than the other doughs, but that's what makes it so perfectly moist on the inside while still maintaing that thick, chewy artisan crust.

I still can't believe that 5 minutes of measuring and stirring results in a loaf like this. 

The potato really just adds moistness so you could even serve this up with jam.  The inside texture and crumb was so fantastic that this version definitely climbs up the ladder of favorites in the no knead category.

No Knead Sourdough Bread

Ingredients
1.5 cup ultra mashed potatoes (no lumps)
3 1/4 cups flour
2 teaspoons sea salt
1 cup water
2.5 tsps yeast

Instructions

1. Spoon mashed potatoes into a bowl with flour, salt, yeast and water. Mix with wooden spoon until combined. 
2. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and set aside for 12-16 hours or overnight. 
3. Heat oven to 450 degrees. When the oven has reached 450 degrees place a cast iron pot with a lid in the oven and heat the pot for 25 minutes. 
4. While the oven and pan is preheating, dump dough onto a heavily floured surface and shape into a ball. The dough will be sticky--keep flouring your hands and rolling dough in flour while forming ball. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest until pan is ready. 
5. Remove hot pan from the oven and carefully drop dough into ungreased pan. 
6. Cover and return to oven for 30 minutes. 
7. After 30 minutes remove the lid and bake an additional 10-15 minutes or until golden brown. 
8. Remove bread from oven and place on a cooling rack. Let cool before slicing

Zusketti with Fresh Mozzarella and Meatballs

During my purge, the questions of utility, need and worthiness needed to be asked of each item.  There are quite a few items that have not made the cut but my spiralizer definitely has. I'm not sure why I've never posted anything about it thus far.  It's a slicer that turns regular ole veggies into super duper noodles.  That's kind of a kitchen essential yes?

There was a period last fall where I was obsessed with spiraling veggies.  Zucchini makes the closest thing to noodles but carrots and beets are also pretty fun.  

What kid or grown up wouldn't eat something that comes out spirally and fun like this?  

I found the that the technique on  Against All Grain's site worked best to remove the moisture. I leave the peel on these days, but if you peel the zucchini and use the oven drying method, the zucchini look a lot more like regular 'ole noodles.  

This is what the "pasta" looks like if you don't oven dry first.  Still tasty and if you don't care and are willing to just drain off the excess moisture, you can skip the drying step.  Either way, it tastes pretty fantastic...if you are a veggie lover.  Let's not kids ourselves here though that you'll think you're eating pasta.  You'll know you're eating a veggie, but a pretty yummy one at that. 

Zusketti with Fresh Mozzarella and  Meatballs

Ingredients:

1 1/3 lbs ground chicken
2/3 cup breadcrumbs
2 minced garlic cloves
1 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp dried basil
1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese
1 egg lightly beaten
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

6 oz fresh mozzarella

2 lb zucchini, spiralized, 

1 tsp salt
5 cups of a favorite tomato sauce

fresh basil leaves for topping

Directions:

1.  Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
2. In a large bowl combine ground chicken, bread crumbs, garlic, garlic powder, basil, Parmesan, egg, salt, and pepper.
3. Combine gently with a fork.
4. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper.
5. With a cookie scoop, drop 1 to 1 1/4-inch meatballs onto sheet pan. You should have about 40 meatballs.
6. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until cooked through and lightly browned.
7. Prepare(or warm up) tomato sauce
8. Remove meatballs and reduce oven to 200 degrees
9. Add meatballs to tomato sauce and cook on low heat while zucchini cooks.  
10. Spread zucchini noodles over baking sheet and sprinkle with salt.  Cook for about 30 minutes or until moisture is released. 
11. Dice fresh mozzarella and set aside
12. When noodles are cooked, place on clean cloth and wring to remove additional moisture.  
13. Serve zucchini topped with meatballs, sauce, fresh mozzarella and basil.