Chocolate Guinness Cake

January 18th was my guy's birthday, and he had told me a long time ago that he wanted a chocolate Guinness cake. I'd never heard of it, but it's not inconceivable; people cook and bake with alcohol all the time, and I could see how a dark beer could add a lot of flavor to a cake. So, we bought some Guinness draught and I set to work building this magnificent creation.

I gotta say, I really love looking at an ingredient list and seeing beer on it. In any case, the cake itself is pretty simple, as you can see from above. It's not a super chocolatel-y cake, but is very light and has great texture. The beer adds depth to the flavor, but is not dominating. First things first: butter the cake dish. I added a ton of Crisco to this, and the cake still came out sticking to the sides! However, it helped:

Next was something I'd never seen before: superfine sugar. "Is that confectioner's sugar?" I thought? No, it's not. Superfine sugar is simply a more finely grained version of regular cane sugar, and is preferred in cakes for giving a smoother texture. Well, it was James' birthday, so I had to do it right! Since I didn't have any superfine sugar what I did do was crush regular sugar with a mortar and pestle until it was finer.

Next you boil beer and butter in a saucepan and start adding your ingredients, like sour cream:

Finally, when you're all done you should have a thick, rich batter of chocolate-y, beer-y goodness.

While this was cooking, I prepared some frosting that touted itself to be the best. The recipe proclaimed that if you could stand not to eat it all while making it, it would totally add to cakes (esp. chocolate) and muffins. "You'll never go back to another kind of frosting," it stated. Well, ultimately it was a buttercream frosting rather than a cream cheese one, and since we'd just had cream cheese frosting on my red velvet cake I decided to try a new one. It was indeed delicious! First you cream butter and sugar until super soft and light, and then you add the other ingredients and whip until smooth and thick. Then you put this on your cake! Note to add this AFTER the cake has cooled, or the butter in the frosting will melt and it will run everywhere.

Enjoy this deliciously moist cake!

Cinnamon Buns (w/ Bacon) Recipe

BREAD

1 package dry yeast
1 c warm milk (105 degrees F)
1/2 c sugar
1/3 c butter, melted
1 t salt
2 eggs
4 c flour


RUB

1 c brown sugar
2 1/2 T cinnamon
1/3 c butter, soft
12 strips bacon (optional)


GLAZE

1/2 c butter, soft
1 1/2 c powdered sugar, sifted
3 oz cream cheese, soft
1/2 t vanilla
1/8 t salt



First add yeast to warm milk with a pinch of sugar and wait until foamy. In large bowl combine all dry ingredients for bread. Then add the eggs, butter and yeast mixture. Cover with damp cloth and put somewhere warm until about doubled in size. Once ready spread the dough out on a floured surface to approximately a 16 x 20 x 1/4" rectangle. Wipe the melted butter from the rub on the dough and pat on mixed cinnamon and sugar. Roll up the rectangle length-ways and cut into 12 pieces. If adding bacon, unroll each piece carefully and wrap bacon within. In a 400 degree oven, cook the rolls for 20 minutes. While cooking, preapre the glaze by creaming the butter, cream cheese and sugar. Once smooth add the vanilla and salt and whip until light and fluffy. If making regular cinnamon rolls, remove from oven and spoon glaze on top while still hot. If making bacon cinnamon rolls, remove from oven and check the bacon. If done, pour on glaze; if not fully cooked carefully remove each piece, pan fry, and replace within the rolls. Add glaze.

Notes:

• If you keep your butter in the fridge and don't want to wait a hundred years for it to come to room temperature, simply but what you need on a dish in the microwave and set for 20-25 seconds (go with less time first). This will make the butter soft but not melt it.

Cinnamon Buns...with Bacon?

That's right, folks, you read it correctly: cinnamon buns with bacon wrapped inside! I was browsing around on Reddit looking at recipes and saw one recommending this one. The author said that rolling a slice of bacon up in a cinnamon bun gave a nice saltiness to balance the sweet, and smokiness to balance the confectionary nature. I thought, "Well, I love bacon too much to ignore this sign. I'll try it!" However, because I always worry about the outcome of my cooking I decided to only do half my buns with bacon and leave the other half as is.

By themselves, cinnamon buns are not only easy but also delicious....and if you are on a low-fat or low-sugar diet you can simply make minor changes to the recipe and they will STILL be delicious. You can't get a recipe much better than that! Plus, for me at least, cinnamon buns have a sort of homey warm quality (even though my mom never made them). Essentially the buns are comprised of three things: a rolled sweetbread, a layer of cinnamon/sugar/butter, and a glaze. The picture above is for the bread. First you have to take into account the yeast. You want to have it as close to room temperature as possible; otherwise it will take longer to foam. If you've never messed with yeast before, you put it with a little sugar in some warm water and it will start to foam. This foam is simply the byproduct of the yeast eating the sugar you gave it. It is supposed to look puffy and smell kinda sour. This is what you're looking for:

As you give the yeast more time it will continue to rise, which is why you have to add it to your bread dough and then set it aside for awhile to rise (or double in size). Although the picture below kinda looks like mangled animal brains, I assure you it is indeed bread dough (pre-risen):

I did realize once I put the yeast in the water that the recipe called for yeast in warm milk, but I figured I'd just add a bit more butter to make up for it. In any case, once your dough is ready, you knead it out with lots of flour onto a rolling surface. The recipe I used called for a rectangle of 20 x 16 x 1/4", but just approximate. The dough will expand a LOT during cooking. Also note the nice non-stick measuring mat my great boyfriend got me! <3

Then add some melted butter and a cinnamon/brown sugar concoction. I also added some chunks of butter because the amount I used was a little short:

To roll this, divide it into three section and roll a bit for each section at a time. So, start at the right side and roll a bit, move to the middle, then to the left side. This ensures that it rolls easy and evenly and you don't tear the dough. Then cut your log into however many rolls you want (I made 12):

Next came the bacon! I simply unrolled 6 rolls and added half slices of bacon into them. Candied bacon, mmmm!

Next is the glaze, which you can make while these are cooking. It's pretty simple: a whipped cream cheese, sugar and vanilla frosting that will seem thicker than it should be but melts once put on hot rolls. If you don't have a hand mixer, you'll have to whip for awhile to cream the butter, cream cheese and sugar together. But you'll get it:

Here comes a bit of advice from a stupid person. Since the bacon I used was thick-cut, when I took out the rolls the first time I checked the bacon and it wasn't completely cooked. I quite wrongly decided to put the rolls back in for 5-10 more minutes....and when they came out again the bacon STILL wasn't done! I then made the wise decision to remove the pieces, pan fry them to crispy goodness, and replace them back into the rolls. I should have done this first, because I ended up with burnt bottoms to my rolls and a little tougher bread consistency than I wanted. Ah well, life is all about learning, isn't it? What I'll do next time, and what you should do the first time, is to cook the rolls for the allotted time, remove the bacon and pan fry it, and replace the bacon. In any case, these next two pictures still look amazing, and I hope you'll try making these soon! Your man will love you forever.