Beer (and cake) For My Birthday

Today is August 3, otherwise known as the joyous day of my birth.  This is the day I joined my parents and two sisters, making them all wonder what they had gotten themselves into.  I almost died a few days later and left them forever, but since I didn't, since I instead stuck around to cause years and years of headache for them (sorry, family), happy 27th birthday to me.

I've said it before and I'll say it again:  The best thing about birthdays is cake.  Usually it's me making the cake for someone else, but yesterday I felt like the luckiest woman in the world when my husband baked me a Chocolate Stout Cake.  The cake turned out pretty impressively for a novice (he's been known to bake me a cake before on my birthday, but as cakes go, he has probably  made fewer than five).  Plus, making the cake gave my husband an excuse to go for a trip to the liquor store and ponder over the best stout for the job. The final winner?  A Young's Luxury Double Chocolate Stout.  Who could object to that? 

I think my husband knows me rather well because when I got back from a hot run yesterday and his cake was in the oven, he had a mini glass bowl of batter for me with a little spoon in it. Batter=yum. Sister F take note. (Said sister has previously denied me fluffy, happy spoonfuls of poppy seed cake batter, fearful of her precious creation being ruined by the absence of a few spoonfuls of batter. Perhaps she just needs a little more experience to know that 1) it hardly makes a difference and 2) cake is made to be enjoyed?)  

Chocolate Stout Cake

This cake comes from the Barrington Brewery in Great Barrington, MA, but is on the Epicurious website.  This is a good cake.  It is what chocolate cake should be, particularly chocolate birthday cake:  dense, very moist, impressively large like an imposing mansion, (yes, this is, without a doubt, the mansion of chocolate cakes) and intensely chocolatey, with a chocolate ganache filling and frosting (ganache is just a fancy name for heavy cream mixed with melted chocolate until it glistens).  No one else claimed to be able to taste the stout in this cake, but I swear I could.  And then there is the addition of sour cream, whose tanginess is a perfect foil to the sweetness of the chocolate and the bitterness of the stout.  I'm not just saying all of these nice things because my husband made it or because it is my birthday cake.  If you have been searching for the perfect chocolate cake, I have a hunch your search might be over.  I think you will be rather pleased with the result.

How-To In Pictures:

The recipe

The ingredients

Making the Cake Batter:

The butter is melted with the stout over the stovetop before it is mixed with the dry ingredients.

Stout and butter form an attractive swirl before coming to a simmer.

Chocolate tower.

Making the Ganache:

Heavy cream heating up before chopped chocolate is whisked in.

The iced and finished cake.

Birthday candles in place and fired up, ready for my wish.

All pictures courtesy of Brewfus Alewise.

The Recipe:

(I copied and pasted this from the Epicurious website; if you want to check out people's comments, click here for the link.)  Also, you can read about the cake from a brewer's perspective (my husband's) in a few days by clicking here. 

Cake

• 2 cups stout (such as Guinness)
• 2 cups (4 sticks) unsalted butter
• 1 1/2 cups unsweetened cocoa powder (preferably Dutch-process)

• 4 cups all purpose flour
• 4 cups sugar
• 1 tablespoon baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 4 large eggs
• 1 1/3 cups sour cream

Icing

• 2 cups whipping cream
• 1 pound bittersweet (not unsweetened) or semisweet chocolate, chopped (Steve used Baker's Semisweet)

preparation

For cake:
Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter three 8-inch round cake pans with 2-inch-high sides. Line with parchment paper. Butter paper. Bring 2 cups stout and 2 cups butter to simmer in heavy large saucepan over medium heat. Add cocoa powder and whisk until mixture is smooth. Cool slightly.

Whisk flour, sugar, baking soda, and 1 1/2 teaspoons salt in large bowl to blend. Using electric mixer, beat eggs and sour cream in another large bowl to blend. Add stout-chocolate mixture to egg mixture and beat just to combine. Add flour mixture and beat briefly on slow speed. Using rubber spatula, fold batter until completely combined. Divide batter equally among prepared pans. Bake cakes until tester inserted into center of cakes comes out clean, about 35 minutes. Transfer cakes to rack; cool 10 minutes. Turn cakes out onto rack and cool completely.

For icing:
Bring cream to simmer in heavy medium saucepan. Remove from heat. Add chopped chocolate and whisk until melted and smooth. Refrigerate until icing is spreadable, stirring frequently, about 2 hours.

Place 1 cake layer on plate. Spread 2/3 cup icing over. Top with second cake layer. Spread 2/3 cup icing over. Top with third cake layer. Spread remaining icing over top and sides of cake.

You Know It's Summer Peach and Blueberry Cobbler

Peach season, same as beach season, or what I like to think of as real summer.  That's how you know:  peaches, curved slices with their slippery bodies, lying lazily in a measuring cup, patiently and dutifully waiting.  Ice-cream, maybe, or pie, a little lemon juice and sugar and some whipped cream for the top.  Or cobbler.  My husband says, as we walk up the hill from the bay (Cape Cod) to the house where we are staying, barefoot and our soles burning, that this is summer.  Hot, open feet on hot pavement, must be summer, but then there is cobbler and that is how I know.  He knows it is feet, skin and heel and heat, but me, me I know that summer is peaches.  

Peach-Blueberry Cobbler from Martha Stewart

I have made this cobbler recipe several times, sometimes with nectarines and peaches, or just nectarines, and it is delicious every time.  Confession:  the biscuit dough is better eaten raw.  Try a little before you add it to the fruit.  The cobbler recipe comes from Marth Stewart Living, August 2005, and it's on the internet.  The only change I have made is that I use bottled vanilla extract rather than vanilla bean.  I've never tried this cobbler with vanilla bean,  but I like to balance the expense of a vanilla bean with a dessert that will really showcase it, like creme brulee or some other such item.  In the fruit, vanilla extract tastes fine, but if you have the cash, go ahead and try the bean.  Just make sure to let me know how it comes out.

INGREDIENTS

Serves 8 to 10 

• 2 3/4 pounds peaches, halved lengthwise, pitted, and cut into 3/4-inch-thick wedges (about 8 cups)  
• 1 cup blueberries, (about 1/2 pint)
• 2/3 cup granulated sugar
• 3 tablespoons cornstarch
• 2 tablespoons packed light-brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon finely grated, peeled fresh ginger
• 1 pinch of salt
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 cup cold unsalted butter, (1 stick), cut into small pieces
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons heavy cream, plus more for brushing
• Sanding sugar, for sprinkling (optional)
• Vanilla bean ice-cream or whipped cream, for serving (optional) (beat cream until soft peaks form, add a little powdered sugar and vanilla and stir to combine--cold cream, bowl and beaters will produce the best whipped cream and will whip the fastest)

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Stir together peaches, blueberries, 1/3 cup granulated sugar, cornstarch, brown sugar, lemon juice, ginger, and a pinch of salt in a large bowl. Transfer to a 12-by-8 1/2-inch (2-quart) baking dish; set aside.
2. Mix flour, baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and remaining 1/3 cup granulated sugar in a medium bowl. Cut butter into flour mixture using a pastry blender or a fork and knife to form pea-sized lumps.
3. Add vanilla to cream and stir to combine.  Add cream mixture to flour mixture; stir until a soft, sticky dough forms. Divide dough into 10 equal pieces; arrange over filling so that the pieces are touching. Brush dough with cream, and sprinkle with sanding sugar if you wish.
4. Place a parchment or foil-lined baking sheet on bottom rack of oven to catch juices. Bake cobbler on top rack directly over the baking sheet until topping is golden brown and juices are bubbling, 55 to 65 minutes. If topping is browning too quickly, cover loosely with foil (towards the end of baking). Let cool on a wire rack 1 hour before serving.
5. Serve cobbler in bowls with vanilla ice-cream or whipped cream.

Fudging Around: A Mackinac Island Jaunt

May's Famous Mackinac Island Vanilla Nut Fudge.

Fudging It

For as long as I can remember, I've wanted to be a food journalist.  Not forever, not for the rest of my life, but just for a year or two.  And, while I'm not exactly a food journalist now, and while it's not for a long period of time or anything, it's even a little bit better. 

Off the coast of northern Michigan is a little circle of land sealed off from the modern world called Mackinac Island (that's pronounced "Mak-i-naw").  There are no cars on the island and you must travel there by ferry, but the ferry will take you to rows and rows of creamy fudge, the slices layed out in trays under sparkling glass for your personal consumption like all the little Madeline girls conscientiously lined up and  waiting for little Madeline's appendix to be safely removed.  

A few weekends ago, courtesy of my husband's friend, Lee May, I had a very exciting opportunity to help make fudge at a famous fudge shop, an opportunity I seized gratefully. The Island is known for its fudge, and Lee's family store, May's Famous Mackinac Fudge, has been in business on the island since the 1880s and continues to operate 3 shops, two of which are on the main street as you walk off the island.  Plus, for those of us who are not able to make it to the Island often, May's has set up a mail order site here.  I can just see all those happy tongues watching as packages of fresh fudge are opened from the mail.  Mmm...

The fudge will delight you in a way that tricks you into thinking you have actually gone back in time, something that the movie, Somewhere in Time, with Christopher Reeves, which was filmed on the island, also attempts to do.  With the horse-drawn carriages and absence of cars, it's not hard to be tricked.  

So Mr. May gave me an apron and a little hat.  The one thing no one bothered to tell me (apparently they just got some laughs out of it!) is that my hat was on the wrong way.  I was supposed to turn it so that the name faced sideways, but I guess that is just something you learn along the way...)  

And the fudge is made:  (Thanks for the lessons, Mr. May.)

Fudge tables ready for hot fudge.

Mr. May and assistant pour hot fudge from a copper kettle onto the marble fudge table for Rocky Road fudge.

Vanilla Nut fudge cools inside metal pieces before it is stirred.

Fudge Master Lee May stirring the fudge.

Mr. May showing me how to stir the fudge properly.  (He was an excellent teacher!)

After the fudge is stirred, Lee has a special method for shaping the sides, which he let me try.  

Flavorings are added after some stirring and are mixed into the fudge.  Here, marshmallows are added to chocolate fudge batter to make Rocky Road fudge.  I'm famous as tourists look on!

Vanilla Nut fudge after Mr. May has shaped it.  (Note the glistening sheen and the nice swirl.)

Lee finishes shaping the top of the fudge in a special swirl pattern, then lets it cool a bit and carefully instructs me in the slicing technique.  

Slicing commences on my own.  Unfortunately, I viciously ripped apart a slice of smooth fudge in this process...I guess practice makes perfect.

*The pictures on this post are courtesy of my husband, Steve Bartha, his mom, Margie Willson, and my mom, Karen Forzani.  Thank you, photographers!

The other night we went to a new pizza place near my dad's house in CT, da Capo, my dad's house being my current and temporary home as my husband and I look for a place to live.  My grandfather paid the bill and had some kind of conversation with the owner that resulted in three free desserts, a trick I really need to learn.  The owner was touting the treat skills of his fine pastry chef who "worked at Le Cirque for seven years," and so I asked if I might learn under her for a while.   I'm not quite sure he knew just what I was saying, but he did answer me in the affirmative.  

One thick piece of cheesecake, 1 spongy block of tiramisu and 1 bloated canoli later (I can do this!), I wondered if this means I should just waltz in next time and remind him of his promise and see what the man is good for.  The restaurant seemed to be doing pretty well, but in these hard times I wonder if smaller restaurants wouldn't want to earn an extra buck or two charging a helpless wannabe pastry chef for a night in the kitchen with the restaurant's finest.  In the meantime, I might just look for some other fudge-like opportunities that will allow me to pretend, even if just for a little while, that I make pastry for a living, or fudge, or other sugar-based products that make our hearts beat and our heads spin in a near swoon.  My food journalism jaunt (payed) will just have to wait for later.  But until then, I guess I'll just fudge it. 

Flourless Chocolate Decadence

My father in-law's birthday made me wonder something.  It made me wonder about cakes and birthdays.  More specifically, it made me wonder if we have to eat cake on our birthdays.  I think plenty of people probably don't, which I think is fine, but I still love cakes on birthdays.  

I am also always curious to ask people what kind of cake they would like me to make them on their birthday and see what they choose.  Of course, you don't have to choose a cake, I'm realizing.  Perhaps I should branch out a bit more with my birthday offerings.  What would people want, if they could have any dessert in the world, on their birthdays?  This I am curious to find out.  

And, although I almost ended up making my father in law an apple pie, which he almost requested  (is this okay? I wondered as he pondered the merits of eating apples in early June), this time, I didn't.  Not that I would have minded.  I mean, I wasn't exactly alarmed at the thought of baking apples in June, but lets just say I'm still warming up to the idea of a non-cake birthday.  

Thankfully, my father in law decided that early June was probably not "seasonable," and requested "gooey chocolate" instead.  Perhaps he could hear my heart rate going up.

In any case, with a pound of chocolate, this cake is very chocolately, but also very light.  You could eat it in a bowl with a spoon, and it goes very nicely with vanilla ice-cream, which is how we ate it.  Or, you could just make the individual version, which I have included below, and which I like a little bit better.  Not really appropriate for celebrating a birthday where you might need to share with lots of people, but hey, if it's your birthday, you can have anything you want.  

Whatever the case, I have a birthday coming up soon (okay, not until August, but I'm kind of an early planner).  Usually I request one from my typical list of birthday cakes:  coconut, ice-cream, German chocolate, or carrot.  But who knows?  This year I might branch out.  And if not, I hope some people will request some non-cakes for their birthdays in the future.  Until then, here is one more birthday cake to add to the list.  The name alone implies it is fit for a birthday, celebrating the decadence of another year.  

Flourless Chocolate Decadence

This cake is perfect for those who are gluten-free, or those who want to have a dessert that is both ready ahead of time and one that just came out of the oven.  You can freeze the cake after you make and pop it in the oven a little before you want to serve it.  The recipe comes from the 75th anniversary edition of The Joy of Cooking, which my husband's parents own but I don't.  My older copy, one I bought several years ago at a small second hand store in New Orleans, is from the 70s and lacks many of the recipes that the new ones contain.  The Joy of Cooking calls for this cake to be served cold, but I served it warm straight from the oven.  Next to this recipe is one for individual cakes served warm, and I find this recipe more endearing due to the individual sizes of the little cakes.  Serve either one with any combination of whipped cream, vanilla ice-cream, or the raspberry sauce recipe (also from The Joy of Cooking and the one they recommend serving with this cake) that follows.  

1 lb semisweet or bittersweet chocolate 

10 T butter (1 1/4 sticks)

5 eggs, separated

1/4 tsp cream of tartar

1 T sugar

Confectioner's sugar (optional)

1.  Butter and flour an 8 inch cake pan.

2.  In the top of a double boiler, melt the butter and chocolate together, mixing until smooth.  Remove from heat. 

3.  Add the 5 egg yolks to the chocolate mixture and whisk until smooth. 

4.  In a separate bowl, beat the 5 egg whites until soft peaks form.  Add the cream of tartar and beat until stiff, but not dry, peaks form.  

5.  Fold about 1/4 of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture.  Then fold in the rest.  

6.  Pour batter into prepared pan and bake at 325 degrees for 30 minutes.  

7.  Refrigerate until cold.  

OR 

Bake for 40 minutes instead and eat warm.  The gooey chocolate center will delight you.  

Raspberry Sauce

12 oz fresh or frozen raspberries

1 T sugar or more, to taste

2 tsp lemon

Individual Molten Chocolate Cakelets 

or "Molten Chocolate Cakes" in The Joy of Cooking's 75^th Anniversary Edition

1.  Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  

2.  Butter and flour 8 muffin cups

3.  In a double boiler, melt 6 oz bitter or semisweet chocolate, chopped and ¾ stick butter.

4.  Remove from heat and sift in ¼ c unsifted cocoa.  Stir until smooth.

5.  In a medium bowl, beat 4 large egg whites and 1/8 tsp cream of tartar until soft peaks form.

6.  Gradually add 2 T sugar and beat until whites are stiff but not dry.

7.  Fold ¼ egg whites into chocolate mixture, then the rest.

8.  Fill each muffin cup ¾ full and bake until cracked on top but gooey in center, about 7-8 minutes.

9.  Let sit 2-3 min until the cakelets shrink from sides of muffin cups.  

*You can also freeze these after you fill the muffin cups.  Remove from freezer just before you are ready to bake them and bake for about 1 minute longer.  

Failure Cupcakes and Other Little Victories

These, I'm sure you won't be surprised to find out, are what I call Failure Cupcakes: 

See how the batter oozed over the top of the cupcake wells and took over the pan like the Blob? 

Failure, my friends.  

Lucky for me, they say that you can learn more from your failures than from your successes, and I am a true believer in this.  See that little corner cupcake up there on the right?  Where I've scraped away the cake that spilled over onto the pan?  I was evaluating my failure and calculating all the learning that would take place.  

This should mean, consequently, that winning the Foodie Fights battle was a horrible, terrible experience.  I learned nothing.  I should go back to making Failure Cupcakes.  However, it's just not true.  Winning is actually secretly kind of fun, and I think it's important to celebrate the little victories just as much as  you learn from the Failure Cupcake instances.  

Just for good measure, however, I pulled one of those Failure Cupcakes out of my freezer tonight where it's been sitting since January (yes, I actually store things that long, as anyone who knows me will attest to).  The little FC is sitting next to me as I write, it's dark chocolate crumb looking a little like the skin of a morel, or maybe a lava rock.  It tastes just a little bit like fish, quite possibly from the tuna steaks that were sharing freezer space with it not so long ago. The little cupcake is worse off...I've failed it not once, but twice!  Oh, the learning!

In any event, once I got past the fishy taste, the cupcake still satisfied my sweet craving and helped me celebrate my little victory. 

And, I have all of my readers and voters to thank.  

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I was really and truly excited when I saw I had won this week's Foodie Fights battle:  Battle Melon and Red Pepper Flake.  And, as you can see, it was all about the popular vote, so a huge THANK YOU goes out to everyone who voted for me, and to Neal of Burning Pasta for such a nice "evaluation."  It sure sounds sweeter than comments I receive on papers:

I loved how visual this entry was; food blogs, after all, are not just about recipes; they’re about description, presentation and aesthetic beauty as well.

This has a lot going for it; a very nice command of the featured ingredients, contrasting textures, seasonality, detailed, visual, meticulous instructions; this is an excellent presentation.  I also appreciate that, while the wafer and sorbet work well together in a contrast of hot and cold, each element could easily be adapted into any number of other settings on its own.  Finally, as someone who has little to no sweet tooth, I liked that this was light, bright, and not overly sugared; this is the kind of dessert I’m always on the lookout for.

If you ever visit me in person, I promise to make you yummy treats. In the meantime, I promise to deliver virtual treats here. My comments section also reached a record high for this entry--10 as of this posting--and I had several "first timers," which just thrilled me all day!  It's the little victories that count, right?  

I was, however, humbled by the other entries, all of which were intensely creative. My husband was practically drooling over Bake-Off Flunkie's Grilled Pork and Cantaloupe with Spicy Balsamic Glaze. With summer here according to my calendar, I have a feeling there is some grilled melon in my future, and I can't wait.  The salad on Charlie Sinden's page made my mouth water, as Humbolt Fog is an inspired cheese, and the combination of mango and red pepper in the dressing sounds so interesting.  Bake-Off Flunkie made the point that a sorbet duo of Cre8tive Kitchen's cantaloupe sorbet and my watermelon sorbet would be heavenly.  I can, in fact, imagine a whole dinner featuring all of our dishes (a future Epic Foodie Fights battle, perhaps?).  The meal would go something like this:  Bake-Off Flunkie's Grilled Pork and Cantaloupe with Charlie Sinden's salad and Prix Fixe's tomato confit with watermelon, along with Potato Candie's Spicy Cantaloupe Amba, (thanks for introducing me to a new sauce!) followed by the sorbet duo.  Wow.   All that pepper would certainly pack a lot of punch.  So congratulations to everyone who participated.  It was a close battle thanks to the quality of your entries.  

If you are a fellow blogger (or thinking about blogging) I would recommend doing the Foodie Fights battle.  I've been baking my whole life but have never actually invented my own recipe, apart from the crustless "quiche" I made as a five-year-old when I pretended I had my own cooking show.  Yikes.  Foodie Fights was a great opportunity for me to try something new!