Baking with Beer

Alongside this blog I just started a new one about my beer adventures. I started drinking beer in 2008 when I was handed a Samuel Adams Boston lager and realised that not all beers taste the same :-)

Since then I have made a hobby out of trying a local beer everywhere I go on my travels. It's pretty fun! I've also discovered that you can cook with beer... more specifically that you can BAKE with beer! An interesting concept to me. So the other day, for Yule, I tried out Blue Moon cupcakes. Blue Moon is a wheat beer made by the Coors company that is quite tasty and it made the cakes a bit more chewy than usual. Not bad!

You can check out my recipe on my beer blog A Woman's Brew here and let me know what you think!

Share the Handmade Love Wednesdays - Food!!

This week I'm sharing the handmade love with food.

I ♥ food!

I love cake and coffee and Mexican and Italian and Japanese. I love cookies and chai and pizza.... yum! When I'm on the ships I can't cook for myself and the food can become a bit samey. So as I am going back on Friday... here's a little food tribute!


Left to right, top to bottom:

Fresh Strawberry Marshmallows by calabasascandyco
Red Velvet Cake Truffles by lollidreams
Butter Cookie Black Tea by NOTJUSTTEA
Mustache on a Stick Cookie by FairytaleFrosting
Mississippi Mud Organic Flavoured Coffee by katherynmd
Green Chili Pork Taquitos by athyme2bcomforted

Let Them Eat Cake!

I’ve been working on a present for my friend Julie over at The Life of a Cupcake. I can’t show it to you yet though, as I have to send it to her and I want it to be a surprise! Instead, I decided to give you a recipe for scrummy chocolate cake to tide you over!! I found this recipe for Double Chocolate muffins online a few years ago and now use it all the time. Don’t worry that it has coffee in it – it doesn’t taste, it just makes the cake moist. And if you wrote the recipe, send me the link to it so I can credit you as I can’t remember where I got it from. I use it to make a big cake, not muffins though ;-)

Ingredients

Cake:

9oz/225g plain flour 

3tsps/15ml baking powder 

3oz/75g cocoa powder 

9oz/225g granulated sugar 

6oz/150g butter, melted 

12fl oz/300ml black coffee, cooled 

3 large eggs

Buttercream Filling:
2oz/50g butter
1oz/25g cocoa powder
5oz/125g icing sugar


Chocolate fudge icing:
4oz/100g milk chocolate, roughly chopped
2tbsps/10ml milk
2oz/50g butter
2oz/50g icing sugar


Method 

Combine the first four ingredients in a mixing bowl. Stir together well. Add the melted butter then, in a mug, beat together the egg with the cooled coffee, and pour on top of the butter. Whisk briskly with a fork until all the ingredients are just combined. Share out into two sandwich cake tins and bake in a preheated oven at 200C/Gas Mark 5 for around 20 minutes.

While the cake is baking and cooling make the filling and icing. For the filling mix together all ingredients until smooth. You may need to add more icing sugar for taste. For fudge icing heat the chocolate, milk and butter in a saucepan, stirring until melted. Removed from heat and beat in the icing sugar. As with the filling, add more icing sugar according to taste. With the fudge icing you will want to chill it for at least an hour until it is solid enough to spread… unlike I did on my first try above where it was a bit runny!

When the cake is cool spread the buttercream on one half and sandwich on the other. Swirl on the fudge icing to finish. The cake can be eaten as it comes or is amazing with cream too!

I made this with my 2 year old nephew, we had a lot of fun!

And just to keep you happy, here’s a sneak preview of Cupcake’s pressie….