Guinness Gingerbread

The picture really doesn't do this justice.

Oh my god this was good!  I'm not usually a huge fan of gingerbread--the cookie kind or the traditional cake kind--or Guinness for that matter.  I loved this, though!  I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, it was from Nigella Kitchen and I always love Nigella's recipes.  They are tasty and relatively easy.  This was no exception.

It was wonderfully tender and moist and aromatic.  You can't necessarily taste the Guinness, it just adds another layer of flavor.  And the ginger of the gingerbread comes through, but is somewhat understated.  The cake was slightly sticky and really light (almost like a steamed pudding).  Just amazing.  And, of the three St. Patrick's Day desserts I made, the biggest hit at the party!

P.S. When I say this was easy, I mean it.  Everything is mixed in on pan (and when it says medium sauce pan, she means medium-large, I used one that was more medium-small, and that got difficult!) Nigella suggests using a disposable pan, DO IT!  It made clean up a breeze, and I'd imagine it would be difficult to get your good cake pan clean after this stickiness!

St. Patrick's Day Shortbread

Here are the shortbread cookies I made for St. Patrick's Day.  They were amazing!  I have to say, I've had trouble finding a good shortbread cookie recipe that makes decent quantity.  (So many recipes only make around a dozen cookies, and that is not nearly enough!)  Anyway, I found this recipe in Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook.  I'd already made her chocolate shortbread, so I figured her plain one would be good.  I was right!  It really was incredible shortbread.  It was buttery and sweet, but not to sweet.  And the texture was perfect; slightly crumbly, compact but not dense, and ever so slightly crisp.  I used light green sanding sugar on top to make them holiday-ish, but usually I would just use plain sugar, though of course you can use any color you want.

Baileys Brownies

The color doesn't look quite right in this photo (it was richer brown and sparklier green in person), sorry!

As I told you before, I made Baileys Brownies for St. Patrick's Day.  You can read all about them here.  However, that's from the practice batch without the lovely sugar on top.  I'd actually been worried about the sugar weighing down the top and messing with the texture of the brownies.  Well, it did weigh down the to a little, but it actually made the texture better!  It made them uniformly fudgy by stopping that little top flakey, cakey layer that forms on most brownies from forming.  And they added a pleasant crunch, but not too much of one.  Really they were quite wonderful!  (And they looked perfect for the holiday.)

By the way, I cut them into small pieces for the party, but I have to say they were the perfect size for eating in general.  They are quite rich and dense so, as much as I don't like to admit it, they are actually best consumed in small(ish) quantities.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I'm going to a St. Patrick's Day party tonight hosted by a woman my pops used to work with, and I decided I'd bring a few desserts. She's Irish, so I didn't want to just bring green sugar cookies, I wanted to do something more traditional. So I hunted through my cookbooks and found three recipes.  The Baileys brownies, traditional shortbread, and Guinness gingerbread.  I'll write about them tomorrow or the next day.

Key Lime Pie

Isn't it beautiful?!

Happy Pi Day!  To celebrate, I made pie...key lime pie, to be precise. I've never made key lime pie before, as it turns out, it's pretty easy! Perhaps some recipes are more complex, but this one (from the Williams-Sanoma Pie & Tart cookbook) was wonderfully simple. And it turned out brilliantly!

The filling was creamy and custardy and smooth. And the taste was excellent too.  I made the graham cracker crust myself so I made it a little thicker than usual, because I love it! I had some problems finding key limes, so I used regular limes instead. But since they are bitterer than key limes (I believe, I've never had fresh key limes before) I added in the juice of one lemon with the lime juice, to give it the right balance of tart, sweet and bitter.  It worked! I just whipped up some cream and piped it on top to make it look pretty and voila, a wonderful pi day treat!

Practice Baileys Browines

I want to make something Baileys flavored for St. Patrick's Day.  I don't want to make the brown sugar cupcakes with Bailey's icing that I have a recipe for, but I don't have any other recipes with Baileys.  So I decided that I could tweak the Emerald City Brownies from the Fat Witch Brownies cookbook.  I figured since they have green sugar on top they'd look very holiday-ish.  Plus they had a lot of mint extract, which I figured I could replace with Baileys.  That way I wouldn't have to worry about adding too much liquid, and I assumed the chocolate wasn't quite as strong as in other brownies so that the mint (or as I did it, Baileys) would come through.  I was right!  They are perfect Baileys Brownies.  The liquor flavor isn't too strong, but it definitely comes through.  One problem, I'm not a huge Baileys fan...I don't dislike it, I just don't love it either...so these brownies, while good, aren't my favorite.

I am going to make them again for St. Patty's Day with the green sugar on top (I didn't want to waste it on a trial batch as it's a little pricey).  So I'll post a photo when I make that batch.

In addition, after the holiday, I'm going to try these with different flavored liquors...perhaps Kahlua or Frangelico.  And I love mint, so I'll definitely try them in their original form too!

Molassesy Chocolate Chip Cookies, take two, con't

Here's the promised photo of the mini version of the molassesy chocolate chip cookies.  It's hard to tell from the photo, but they were only about an inch/inch and a half in diameter.  

By the way, since these were smaller than the cookbook says to make them, I knocked about 2 minutes off the cooking time for these, so that they didn't get overdone.  It worked, they still had a lovely soft, almost-but-not-quite undercooked center and were nicely golden on the edges.

Molassesy Chocolate Chip Cookies, take two

I love these cookies, as you can read about here.  I made them miniature this time to bring into my class.  I wanted to make something French again (I made the palmiers for this class), but I couldn't figure out anything that was both recognizably French and really easy (because I only had an hour).  Then it hit me, these cookies are from Roland Mesnier's cookbook, and he's French, so these are technically French...right?  Ok, I know that's a stretch.  But no one seemed to mind.  In fact, every cookie I brought was eaten!

P.S. I'll post a photo tomorrow.

Sunday Night Cake, take two

  

Here is the iced version of the Sunday Night Cake.  It really is excellent plain, but it is pretty darn excellent with the icing too!  The cake was light and cinnamony, with a nice zing from the sour cream (or the Greek yogurt...this time it was with the sour cream.)  So it is nicely complemented by the icing, which is kind of like a light chocolate pudding.  I do have to confess, I probably won't make the icing too often...it's great, don't get me wrong, but it the cake is great without it and so much less work.