Posts Tagged ‘dessert’

Best Ever Irish Stout Chocolate Cupcakes

Photo by Richard Swearinger

Photo by Richard Swearinger

 

St. Patrick would be proud. It’s easy to dive face first into these chocolate cupcakes flavored up with Irish stout. You only need 1/2 cup or so to make this Double Chocolate Stout Cupcake recipe. We like to use chocolate stout, but any old stout will do. (You know what to do with the remaining stout, right? Slàinte!)

Double Chocolate Stout Cupcakes

Makes 12 cupcakes

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup chocolate stout

1/2 cup butter (unsalted, please. If you’re using salted butter, ditch the salt, above)

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

3 ounces dark unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped, or semisweet dark chocolate chips

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

2 slightly beaten eggs

Dark Chocolate Frosting (next page)

Coarse sea salt

12 bite-size pretzels

1. Preheat the oven to 350* F. Line muffin pan with 12 paper liners. Set aside. Stir together flour, soda, and salt. Set aside.

2. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, bring stout, butter, and cocoa just to simmer; stirring frequently. Add dark chocolate, stirring until melted. Remove from heat. Add brown sugar, stirring until smooth. Whisk in eggs until combined. Add flour mixture, beating until smooth.

3. Fill cupcake liners about ¾ full. Bake for about 15 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. (Or just tap the top of the cupcake with your finger.  It should bounce back.) Cool in pan on rack for 5 minutes, then carefully remove cupcakes from muffin pan and cool completely on rack.

4. Pipe or frost with Dark Chocolate Frosting (below). Sprinkle coarse salt over each cupcake. Top with a pretzel. (Or skip the salt and crush the pretzels and sprinkle on top.

Dark Chocolate Frosting

Makes enough to cover 12 cupcakes

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup dark chocolate chips (or 4 ounces dark chocolate, coarsely chopped)

3 cups sifted powdered sugar

¼ cup milk (add a splash of Irish cream, if you’d like to be more decadent)

1. In a small saucepan, heat the butter and chocolate over very low heat until butter and chocolate are melted, stirring constantly.

2. In a bowl, stir together powdered sugar and milk. Add melted butter and chocolate. Beat by hand until smooth. Cool to room temperature. Frosting will thicken as it cools. Stir in additional milk, 1 tablespoon at a time, if frosting is too thick.



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Pumpkin Cinnamon-Cardamom Bars Reprise

Autumn in Milwaukee

In case you missed this post from a few years back. These are the most amazing pumpkin bars, if I do say so myself.

It’s Fall, Y’all!

Went out for a contemplative walk, but kept getting distracted by nature. First the trees with their distracting oranges and reds and yellows against the sky-blue sky. And the slightly deeper blue of Lake Michigan in the background. And the crunch, crunch, kick, crunch, flutter of the leaves underfoot. And the sunshine which made the day look like it should feel warmer, but instead simply verified what the trees know: Fall is here.

And so it’s time for Pumpkin Cinnamon-Cardamom Bars.

Baking them results in aromatherapy of the highest order. Happiness guaranteed.

And yes, I know that they are more cakey than bar-like, but they’re called bars anyway.

I’ve been baking these for-almost-ever. And tweaking them a bit over the years. The original recipe included 1 cup of oil, so I experimented with half oil, half applesauce. It works, but makes the texture a little gummy. So I tried this version with 1/4 cup applesauce. Thumbs up. (You can skip the applesauce and use 1 cup of oil, if there’s no applesauce in the house.)

The spices are subject to your whim or your pantry. I’ve been loving cardamom lately so I added some. Sometimes I include a dash of cloves and/or ginger. But always, always cinnamon.

The frosting is barely sweet, the way I like it. Oh, and I almost always add pecans. But you’ll notice there are none in the photo. That’s because I was entertaining someone with nut allergies. They were still good (but even better with pecans!)

Pumpkin Bars Minus the Pecans

Pumpkin-Cinnamon-Cardamom Bars

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

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Cupid Can Suck It


2599_1103670158685_6295263_nBy Lindsey Ambrose is the daughter of Jeanne Ambrose. She is a small-space gardener extraordinaire with a penchant for cooking fresh and local. She goes for full-flavored, somewhat-spicy cuisine with a flair for ethnic-fusion feasts.

It’s no secret that I’ve never been a huge fan of Valentine’s Day. While I do love most holidays (mainly for the excuse to overindulge in food and fancy cocktails) this one has always stuck in my craw. Shouldn’t we appreciate our loved ones year round? It’s simple really: if you love someone treat them well.

Raised by an amazing and independent working lady—my strong single mom—I always planned to make it on my own. If I found love on the side, well so be it. Marriage? That’s a sucker’s game.

But then I found someone that I loved very deeply—and more importantly didn’t bore me—even after four years of cohabitation. I was happy and didn’t mind the idea of marriage anymore. Valentine’s Day became more exciting than depressing and I began to concoct fun, non-cliche ways to celebrate. Maybe Valentine’s Day was more romantic than I thought. Maybe it really was just an excuse to dedicate your time, or money, to show someone that you truly cared about them.

Imagine my surprise when my Valentine had other plans. Things had become rocky since discovering he had been back in touch with an ex-girlfriend and hiding it from me. We started to bicker a lot. So I wasn’t incredibly surprised when he broke up with me on Valentine’s Day, saying he just couldn’t see spending the rest of his life with me. Not surprised, just a little pissed at the timing—and heartbroken. Just when I thought I could maybe get behind the whole V-day hoopla.

Get bent, Cupid.

For anyone who’s been jilted on Valentine’s Day, this song is for you.
Disclaimer: This song did not get the Mom seal of approval. She likes Bruno Mars these days.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tn0PMCwIUxI

Don’t forget the treats. Enjoy these Moon Drops for your solo Valentine’s Day can suck it party.

Moon Drops
A small batch makes about 13 TB sized balls (heaping tablespoons, that is)

Ingredients:

1/2 cup almond butter*

1/4 cup honey

3 TB coconut oil

1/2 cup oatmeal

1/2 cup coconut flakes

1/4 cup chopped up nuts (walnuts are great)

1/2 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp cardamom

Optional add-ins:

1/4 cup of dried cranberries, chopped dried figs, dates or any dried fruit, chocolate chips or cacao nibs for chocolate lovers. You can also dip/roll these in cocoa powder or add a few tablespoons of it to the mixture!

Directions

Heat the almond butter, honey, and coconut oil in a saucepan on low, stirring constantly, until melted. Once melted, remove from heat. Add remaining ingredients to mixture, stirring vigorously until fully incorporated.

Using a tablespoon, drop mixture onto waxed paper covered cookie. Place cookie sheets in the fridge for about an hour or so until the drops begin to harden.

Now you can leave them as blobs, or form them into nice balls, hearts or whatever you’re in the mood for.

 



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Random Act of Pie

Every now and then, six or seven firefighters sit in a row of chairs in front of the firehouse at dusk, sometimes after dark, cooling off. I’ve driven by on my way home and there they are, side by side, sitting on folding chairs in the driveway, facing the street. Makes me smile.

And because of that, I decided to bake them a slab apple pie (also known as apple pie bars).

Picked up Jonathan and Cortland apples from the farmer’s market. Used vodka, along with water, in the dough for the first time because Cook’s Illustrated says it makes the best pie crust. It’s all about science and gluten (which makes tough crusts). When water is combined with flour, it forms gluten. Replace some of the water with vodka and you don’t get as much crust-toughening gluten. I probably won’t do it again. My original crust was easier to work with. Just sayin’.

Also tried adding apple cider to the glaze, rather than my standard milk.

Then it was time for the delivery. I stopped in just as the firefighters were finishing dinner. “Here’s the dessert I ordered,” said the guy who held the door open for me.

It made the guys smile. Which made me smile. Again.

Here’s the recipe:

Slab Apple Pie

3 1/4 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup shortening
½ cup ice water
¼ cup ice cold vodka or water

1/2 cup sugar
2 Tbsp. flour
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
8 cups sliced apples
1 recipe Vanilla Glaze (below)

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