Happy Saint Patrick's Day

Chocolate Guinness Cake

I've made this many times for many occasions like my sister's 40th birthday party and St. Patty's Day. Yes, it has FOUR sticks of butter and a whole pint of beer in it. That's why its so darn good.

Cake:
2 cups Guinness Stout
2 cups (4 sticks) unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups unsweetened dutch processed cocoa powder
4 cups all purpose flour
4 cups sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
4 large eggs
1 1/3 cups sour cream

Ganache:
2 cups whipping cream
1 pound bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, Butter three 8-inch round cake pans with 2-inch high sides, then line with parchment paper.

Bring stout and butter to simmer in saucepan over medium heat. Add cocoa powder and whisk until smooth. Cool slightly.

Whisk flour sugar, baking soda and salt in large bowl.

In mixer beat eggs and sour cream and chocolate-stout mixture just to combine. Add flour mixture and beat briefly on low speed.

Divide between three pans and bake for 35 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes, turn out of pans, cool completely.

For Ganache:
Bring cream to simmer in saucepan. Remove from heat. Add chopped chocolate and whisk until melted and smooth. Refrigerate until spreadable, stirring frequently.

Assemble cake with ganache between the layers and poured over the top.

Published in Bon Appetit September 2002

Meg's 1st Birthday

Henry at his friend, Megan's, first birthday party. They were both skeptical of the cake and confused by the flashes of eight relative's cameras taking pictures all at once.

Oatmeal Raisin

Here's the latest cookie I've made. I started with the Cook's Illustrated recipe but deviated. A lot.
I added three ingredients and changed another one. I think that makes it my own, don't you? They turned out chewy and oatmeal-y and nutmeg-a-licous. I really should be adding up my daily butter consumption. I have a feeling its very, very high.

Wet Stuff:
2 sticks butter
1 cup light brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract (the real stuff, imitation vanilla extract should be outlawed)

Dry stuff:
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg (store bought ground nutmeg sucks)
1/2 tsp. cinnamon

The goods:
3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1 1/2 cups raisins

Beat the butter, add the sugar, beat some more, add the eggs one at a time, beat some more, add the vanilla. Whisk the dry stuff together for even distribution, reserving one tablespoon. Mix the dry with the wet. Toss the raisins with the reserved tablespoon of dry stuff so they don't stick together. Add the oats and raisins to the dough and mix just until combined. Scoop 1 1/2 tablespoon balls onto parchment-lined baking sheets. The need about 12 minutes or so at 350 degrees or until just starting to get a little brown around the edges. Take them out even if they still look a little underbaked. If you leave them in too long, they will get hard and hard cookies suck. These should be chewy.

Lovely with a glass of milk, unless you're lactose intolerant in which case they are also lovely with a Surly Bender :)

Cookie Baking Jag

The Magic Cookie Jar full of Pecan Sandies

On of the many strange quests I've been on since finding myself unemployed is the overwhelming desire to bake every single cookie recipe in the 1000 page Cook's Illustrated recipe tome. I've also been cooking A LOT - everything from Morrocan lamb tagine to traditional jambalaya for Fat Tuesday to pork country ribs and roast chicken. But, lets focus on the cookies, for now.

I have a love/hate relationship with Cook's Illustrated. I've been a recipe tester for them in the past and I understand the systematic thinking of testing every detail, ingredient and method to find THE best way to make something. Often, when they publish a recipe, you should follow it precisely to get the best results. However, sometimes I feel like this rigorous testing leads their recipes to be overly complicated or, alternately, dumbed down to the most pedestrian tastes. There are 23 base recipes in the cookie section that includes both cookies and bars plus variations on each. I have made ten so far. Here are my reviews:

Pecan Sandies
Excellent texture and taste, but add vanilla. Cook's omitted it citing tasters that found it overwhelming. I disagree.

Almond Sandies
Very good. Be sure to grind the almonds very fine. I made them too coarse. Also, I upped the amount of almond extract. Cook's called for a teeny 1/4 teaspoon. I would add a whole teaspoon especially since I found really nice tasting organic extract.

Molasses with Rum Glaze
These are AWESOME. Seriously, I ate most of the batch myself. Cook's found blackstrap molasses to be too strong, but I loved it. I used Pusser's Rum in the glaze. Killer. I'm make them again and again.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip
I flat out don't like Cook's version of these. They got very hard and needed vanilla.
I am on a quest to find the most perfect oatmeal chocolate chip cookie. In my opinion they need to be big and chewy with lots of brown sugar and really good chocolate flavor. The Cook's recipe turned out to be far below my expectations for this particular cookie. So, I branched out and tried 3 other oatmeal-chocolate chip recipes from various sources. One randomly from the internet which was so-so and needed an extra cup of flour. One from the family archives which turned out hard and curiously flavorless and then... a really good one from an unexpected source. I have a chocolate-lovers cookbook put out by the Hershey company. The recipes are good, but honestly, are even better if you use *good* chocolate/cocoa and NOT Hershey's. The best chocolate chips I've found are Callabeaut and are available in bulk at my co-op. As far as cocoa powder, get a high quality dutch processed.

Thick and Chewy Double Chocolate
Yes!! Chocolate and Espresso. Good god, these are good, but the Triples are even better.

Thick and Chewy Triple Chocolate
Nathan and my favorite so far. Use really good chocolate - dutch processed cocoa and good chocolate chips.

Peanut Butter
Hands down the best peanut butter cookies. The secret is to grind up whole peanuts yourself.

Classic Brownies
These did not turn out so well. I cooked them a long time, much longer than called for and they were still gooey to the point of being doughy in the middle. We ate all the way around the outside and three the rest out.

Lemon Bars (Key Lime Bar variation not in the book, but on their website)
Very good. Using fresh citrus and zest is the key to really good flavor.

Up Next:
I plan to try the oatmeal raisin variation today despite my dislike for the oatmeal chocolate chip variation in this book. I'm likely to doctor it as I see fit. I also plan to try the Hermits and Pecan Squares soon. Cook's doesn't have a recipe for homemade fig newtons, but there must be one out there somewhere and that intrigues me. I'll let you know what I find.

Drooler Monkey

I can taste salty baby tears on my tongue today. I kissed little tears off Henry's face after he had his vaccinations today. He had three shots and one oral vaccination at his four month check up this morning. He was a trooper though and recovered really quickly. He nursed and had a nap after we got home and was smiling and cooing again in no time. Here are the stats from today's check up:

16 lbs 12 ounces
26 3/4 inches tall
17 1/8 inch noggin

He is very strong, with the head control and hand-eye coordination of a six month old. He is babbling a lot and on the cusp of teething so is more or less a drool factory, soaking jammies and bibs and chewing on anything that gets near his mouth.

He had his first piano lesson with Daddy last week and is learning Abbey Road as he watches Nathan rehearse on piano and guitar and sing.

Exersaucer

The kid's head control is almost ready for sitting up, but not quite. Here is a video of Henry checking out is his friend, Paige's, Exersaucer.

SAHM

Three weeks into this whole stay-at-home-mom (SAHM as opposed to SAHB, which is an entirely different thing) business and things are going well. In reality, I've essentially been home since the end of September. I was terrified that having a baby in the winter would mean depression for me. The combination of postpartum and seasonal depression, continual sleep deprivation PLUS light deprivation, well, it could have been lethal and I was very much in fear of it. Surprisingly, I've come through the winter quite well and even the addition of my job loss had not managed to suck me down into the abyss. Henry and I joined a group of other moms and kids thanks to our friend Emily and really enjoyed our first week with them. I hope that "Mommy Mondays" will be a good outlet for us as Henry learns social skills with the other children and I get to have other SAHMs to check in with for sanity sake. I did experience all of the stages of grief when I was laid off. I was angry, very angry for a long time. Then sad and worried my career was over. I was in denial for awhile, then indifferent and I think now I'm finally in the acceptance stage. I also went through a couple of my own unique stages including obsessive vaccuuming, baking and two nights of drinking, but I'm over those now, too. I am looking for a job, but the reality is that there just isn't much out there right now. Many companies and especially non-profits are expiriencing hiring freezes and lay-offs. I'm not even looking in public radio, where I've worked for the last decade, because media is being particularly hard hit by this economic depression. So, I've added another night class to my Spring schedule and hope to finish my Master's degree as soon as I can. This means, likely, student loans but there is not much else I can do right now. Henry and Nathan will be hanging out having quality Father-Son time on Monday and Thursday evenings from now through May. It'll be good for them!

At three months, Hank The Tank is growing fast and furious. He's 16 pounds already and he seems to be very healthy. We will see the dermatolgist again soon to have another look at his hemangioma, but it appears to be involuting (fixing itself) already. Yay!

Busting out of Uncle Keith's baseball shirt at 3 months