Guiness Chocolate Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Thanks to Arielle for the mysterious introduction and serious pressure to actually publish today. Here goes for nothing for my inaugural blog post:

Saturday night was my beer geek boyfriend's 31st birthday party, and also an early St. Patrick's Day celebration for those of us who can no longer spend twelve hours drinking on a Thursday. For the occasion I found a recipe that combined both of our great loves - beer and chocolate.

Guiness Chocolate Cake
Adapted from BonAppetit.com
Makes one two layer nine inch cake



For the cake:
3 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped
2 1/4 cup flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
14 tablespoons (1 3/4 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/4 cups plus 3 tablespoons sugar
3 large eggs
3/4 cup stout
2/3 cup freshly brewed coffee, room temperature





For the cream cheese frosting:
8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
8 ounces (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut in pieces, room temperature
1 cup confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla


Cake Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Butter and flour two nine-inch cake pans lined with parchment paper
3. Melt the chocolate in a metal bowl over simmering water, stirring until smooth. Set aside.
4. Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl.
5. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat together butter and sugar until light and fluffy
6. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each
7. Add the stout, then the coffee. (Batter gets liquid-y at this point, don't worry)
8. Add the flour in three portions; beat until smooth and creamy
9. Pour batter evenly into the prepared cake pans
10. Bake until a toothpick comes out clean, about 30 minutes.
11. Leave the cake in the pans for 20 minutes, then turn onto a wire rack to cool. Remove the parchment rounds.
12. Trim the domes off the cake layers once entirely cool. Use a serrated knife.

Frosting Directions:
1. Place cream cheese in a medium mixing bowl
2. Beat to soften the cream cheese
3. Gradually add butter, and continue beating until smooth
4. Sift in confectioners sugar, continue beating until smooth
5. Add vanilla, stir to combine
6. Make sure the frosting is at room temperature, and cakes are cooled, then frost your cake.

I asked Martha for some tips on frosting, and then got to it.




My comments on the recipe:



1. Don't skip the parchment paper. Even if you don't keep 9" circles of parchment paper stocked in your kitchen (I mean, who doesn't do that?) then trace the 9" bottom of the pan on to a regular sheet of parchment paper and cut it out.


2. Have fun with the stout. I used regular ole Guiness because I didn't want to waste a delicious, expensive beer on a cake that I wasn't sure would even taste like beer. Guess what...it tastes like beer! So go for the good stuff. Next time I will use Brooklyn Brewery's Black Chocolate Stout.


3. Warn fellow eaters THIS CAKE HAS BEER IN IT. Because otherwise they will think you seriously messed up your chocolate cake.


4. If cream cheese frosting is not your thing, chocolate ganache would be yummy too. Or add some Bailey's to the cream cheese.

5. I tripled the frosting recipe because I wanted to have enough to do a beautiful frosting job. This left me with a tupperware full of leftovers, but I didn't hear any complaints from guests who dug in with a spoon. Doubling the recipe will yield plenty.

Eat, drink and be merry...Happy St. Patty's!


Elizabeth

Special guest blogger tomorrow!

I know you all are sitting at home (or more likely your office) wondering, what on earth does Braided and Egged have in-store for us this St. Patrick's Day. A patented family recipe for jello shots? A breakdown of the health benefits of green beer vs. normal colored beer? A shamrocking rock candy recipe? 

Scorekeepers in Ann Arbor serving up green beer.

The answer is even better folks (although now I am curious about the green dye thing, let me know if you want to guest post on that). 

That's right, a guest blogger with a cake recipe involving beer. So stayed tuned for her debut tomorrow!

And because you asked so nicely, my recipe for spirited jello (I know my Nini will really appreciate this one). 

Shamrocking Jello

Ingredients:

• 2 boxes NON-SUGAR FREE lime green Jello (I repeat, please do not try to out sorority me, this is not Sushi With My Girls for the love of the Irish do not use sugar-free Jello)
• 2 cups boiling water
• 2 cups chilled Boone's Farm flavored beverage of choice

Directions:

Pour contents of Jello into large bowl. Pour boiling water over Jello. Stir until powder dissolves. Pour chilled Boone's into bowl. Portion out Jello to fit into small plastic cups of choice, placing cups onto a baking sheet. Put baking sheet in fridge and chill until set. Make sure not to get caught leaving the sorority house with said baking sheet.

Enjoy responsibly! 

Most decidedly not guest blogger.

The most amazing hamantashen on the planet (at least until tomorrow's recipe)

Tip of the HAT (get it? Purim pun!) to Gale Gand for this spectacular hamentashen recipe. 

It's like Gale has access to my gustatory archives and has corrected the sins of the many bad hamentashen I've eaten in my lifetime (hello, temple bake sale). Now if only she could erase the sins of the many ugly dresses I wore to many a bat mitzvah party.

While Purim might not start until this weekend, some of my lucky friends might be celebrating early... 

Only change I would make to this recipe is to cut down a bit on the orange juice for the filling unless you don't mind cooking down the contents for a lot longer. Also I ended up with a ton of extra filling, (make sure to measure the apricots after they're chopped rather than before). So be prepared to see a bit of a repeat tomorrow, but hey, who doesn't love an apricot hamentashen?

Chag Semeach Purim!

Hamentaschen

Recipe courtesy Gale Gand

Filling:

• 2 cups finely chopped dried apricots
• 1 1/3 cups orange juice
• 2/3 cup honey
• 1/2 orange, zest grated

Dough:

• 2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup cold unsalted butter
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 egg white
• 1/2 orange, zest grated

Equipment:

2 1/2 to 3-inch round cookie cutter (I used a juice glass, works just as well).

Directions:

To make the Filling: Place the ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for about 15 minutes or until soft and the liquid is absorbed. Add water, if needed. Let cool.

To make the Dough: Combine the flour, baking powder and salt in a food processor. Add the butter and pulse. In a small bowl, mix together the sugar, egg, egg white, and orange zest. Add it to the processor and pulse to mix, being careful not to over mix. Divide into 2 disks and chill 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Roll out the dough on a floured work surface to 1/4-inch thick. Cut out 2 1/2 to 3-inch disks. (You can re-roll the scrapes to make more disks.) Place a disk of dough down and place 1 teaspoon of filling in the center. Pinch the disk in 3 places to form a triangular shape with the filling still showing in the center. They will look like 3 cornered hats. Place 2 inches apart on baking sheets. Continue until all the disks are made.

Bake for 12 to 14 minutes (watch carefully, these suckers burn fast) and let cool on favorite cookie rack of your choice. 

The Perfect Challah

Admit it, you’ve eaten it, but in your mind, you’ve never been able to replicate it.

The perfect challah. For serious challah bakers and their discerning friends it’s as elusive as the chupacabra. We swear we’ve eaten it. We swear we’ve never made it. But week after week we try to create it. I have been making challah on and off since my stint at Gan HaYeled. Every Friday my classmates and I would roll out little challahs that would then disappear and reemerge as perfect glowing loaves meticulously braided and wrapped in plastic in my little yellow backpack for my family’s Sabbath enjoyment. In my mind that challah that I had “made all by myself” is the perfect challah. It’s taken on a rarified placed in my memory, the smell, the taste. I got to gets me the perfect challah.

My Aunt Sally in Austin is my challah mentor and inspiration. Every Thursday night my aunt starts the leavening process, letting her challah rise in the fridge overnight and finishing up her challah when she comes home from a full-day of work on Friday so that her beautiful family can devour her consistently delicious challah. I admire both my aunt’s ability to turn out a fabulous challah (usually two) every Shabbat even after a long hard week and her amazing patience with her family as she seeks out feedback week after week shortly after the hamotzei. I am in awe of my aunt’s good nature and respect for her family’s opinions even after all the hard work she put into the loaves. It wasn’t until I started making challah regularly myself that I started to understand my aunt’s admiration for her family’s opinions and her willingness to try new recipes. When you’re on the road to perfection, you need feedback.

Obsessive I am usually not, but give me a challah fresh out of the oven that I kneaded and rolled out myself and I become a crazy person. I seek out the opinions of family, friends, neighbors, and strangers. I pull little baggies out of my purse at bars and restaurants and other odd moments to share with friends and anxiously await their verdict. I have to stop myself from making another batch the second I put mine in the oven on Friday. I have visions of over salted, undercooked, under sweetened logs going stale, an ode to my failure. Worse still I could underestimate the deliciousness of the recipe and bake a paltry two loaf recipe and cause a scene at Shabbat when there weren’t enough perfectly formed morsels to go around.

What is a premature yenta to do? KEEP TRYING!

I'll be making other things for sure, so stay tuned and challah at me if you think yours is the perfect recipe I'm looking for!

It's only appropriate that my first post be about my favorite Friday night treat, that's right, my amazing grandmother's amazing challah. 

"Nini's Challah"

(Recipe makes two normal loaves, amounts in parenthesis make two giant loaves or three normal loaves)

2 (or 3) packages of yeast

1/3 (or 1/2) cup warm water

3 (or 5) eggs

1/2 (or 2/3) cup sugar (more or less to suit your tastes)

2 (or 4) teaspoons salt

2/3 (or 1 cup) Wesson Oil (aka canola oil, I like to do half olive oil, half Wesson)

Additional 2/3 (or 1) cup warm water

5 (or 7) cups all-purpose flour

Additional egg for egg-wash

1/4 cup corn meal (optional)

Poppy seeds or sesame seeds (optional)

Pour flour into large bowl and make a well in center. Crumble yeast into well and add water (first amount) - mix lightly. Cover the well with some of the flour and let rest in the bowl for about 5 minutes.

In separate bowl, mix eggs, sugar, salt, oil and additional water and add to flour mixture. Mix until dough leaves sides of bowl.

Turn out on floured board and knead until dough is smooth (or if you're lucky enough to have a standing mixer get out your dough hook and grab a glass of wine while the dough kneads itself for approximately 8 minutes). Add additional flour if it's looking more sticky than doughy, I use up to a cup.

Place in a large greased bowl and cover with a cotton towel. Let rise in a warm place until it doubles in size (about 2 hours). If you're making this the night before and are ready to hit the sack, put the bowl in the fridge and let rise there overnight.

Turn dough out onto a floured board once more and knead well again until dough is shiny and smooth. Don't be afraid to get in there, the dough likes it rough. You want the dough to feel as my aunt likes to say "like an earlobe".

Cover and let rise again in warm place for 30 minutes.

Remove from bowl, if you're making 3 challahs cut dough 3 equal ways, otherwise half dough then divide again in 3 pieces and braid like you would braid your hair. If you want to get more elaborate click here for additional information on braiding.Braiding can be tricky so don't be scared to add more flour to the board and a bit of canola oil to your hands. Also when you master the six-stranded challah give me a call!

To prepare baking sheet, I am a big fan of Sur La Table's Silpat Baking Mats and use them for everything I bake. If you don't have silpats, I recommend covering your baking sheet with parchment paper to avoid messy clean-up. I prefer my challah with a bit of a crusty bottom, to achieve this, spread about 1/4 cup of corn meal on the baking sheet before you put the challah onto pan (two to a pan with a few inches between). Cover braided challahs with cotton towel once more and let stand for 45 minutes. 

Pre-heat oven to 325F.

15 minutes before you are ready to bake challahs, separate egg you set aside earlier and beat yoke with 1 tablespoon of water in small bowl. Lightly brush the top of the challahs with the egg-wash and let stand 15 minutes, now is the time for poppy or sesame seeds if you so desire. 

Bake for 40-45 minutes or until brown and sounds "hollow" when tapped. If you notice your challah is browning too much for your taste, put a sheet of aluminum foil on top lightly (but don't secure it to pan).

Remove challah to cooling rack and enjoy!