Comfort Food - Cake

Because beer doesn't qualify as food (although it has qualified as dinner before) it cannot truly be considered a comfort food.  Besides, that would be a bit scary.  But beer in cake?  Definitely dinner and dessert, and a midnight snack or two, all in one tasty, brown, sweet, and crumbly package.

During one of our recent emergency room visits I flipped through the March issue of Chatelaine?  Does anyone else feel sadly old reading a magazine they remember their mom reading, while you snuck looks to make yourself feel older?  And can you believe there was a current issue of a magazine in a hospital waiting room?  I digress.

Not so surreptitiously I ripped out the page before we left.  Something about beer and cake together seemed ridiculously indulgent.  Other than cupcakes here and there and a birthday cake or two (and it's usually wacky cake) I never bake cakes.  We just don't have enough company to justify all that goodness in the house for me to eat over the next two days, to the neglect of any other food.

There was no occasion other than family dinner to make the cake.  With one sad looking Trad in the house I broke it open - resisting the urge at 10 am to take a sip - and got to baking.  It was an easy cake to make, as most are.  Really just a dense and crumbly cake, using beer instead of milk or another liquid.  Honestly, I was a little worried that it wasn't coming together well as the batter was quite dry.  And maybe it isn't supposed to be?  But it resulted in a wonderful cake.

Shockingly, I also followed the recipe and used the remainder of the beer for the icing.  It is a basic whipped buttercream.  I know most people find buttercream to sweet, but I recommend it in this instance.  There is a good ratio of cake to icing, unlike many a famous purchased cupcake, and the sweetness of the icing is balanced out by the crumb of the cake.

And, in case you were wondering, you don't really taste the beer.  Trad is not a mild tasting beer, but it isn't a strong stout like a Guinness (which is what was called for in the initial recipe).  There was just a hint of bitterness to the cake, and not enough that The Monster or Hubby went, "Hey, what's in this?"  We all just happily ate our cake, patted our tummies, and laughed through another loud and crazy meal time.  A kitchen antidote for a long and stressful day.

Chocolate Beer Cake

(adapted from Chatelaine, March 2009)

1 1/2 cups flour

3/4 cocoa powder

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 cup lightly packed brown sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup beer

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degree F.  Spray two 8 inch round cake pans.

2. Sift flour with cocoa, baking powder, soda, salt into a bowl.  Stir to mix.

3.  Using an electric mixer beat the butter and sugar for a few minutes until fluffy.  Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.  Beat in vanilla.

4.  Stir about 1/3 of the dry ingredients into the butter mixture, add half of the beer.  Repeat the additions, ending with flour.  Stir until evenly mixed.  Pour batter into prepared pans.

5.  Bake in centre of oven for 25-28 minutes.  Cool in pans on rack for 10 minutes, then turn out to cool completely.

Chocolate Beer Icing

3 cups icing sugar

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature

1/3 cup beer (or milk)

1 tsp vanilla

pinch of salt

1.  Sift icing sugar with cocoa.

2.  In separate bowl beat butter until creamy.  Gradually beat in half the icing sugar.  Mixture will be dry.  Slowly add beer, vanilla and salt.  Add the remaining icing sugar.  Beat until well combined.

To ice the cake, slice off any bump from the top of the cake, making a flat top.  Place one cake on a plate or cake stand.  Spread a third of the icing on the cake.  Place remaining cake on top and gently press down.  Spread another third of the icing on top.  Then spread the remaining third of the icing on the sides of the cake.

Enjoy - with a glass of milk or maybe a scotch.  Oddly, a glass of beer doesn't seem to go well with a slice of this cake.

If You Can't Buy Shoes...

Stay-at-home moms don't get Christmas parties. Especially stay-at-home moms married to a self-employed men. There is no reason to go shopping and buy a fancy dress and wickedly sexy shoes. There is no babysitter to find and pay a small ransom. There is no mediocre prime rib dinner and boring dance. There are no door prizes, cheezy centerpieces, and someone embarrassing themselves.

Okay, it isn't all bad. But a night off is nice. My girlfriend Tanya to the rescue (she is so good at that)! She invited a few of us over for treats, gossip, and Grey's Anatomy. We all brought more treats too. That way none of us was really cooking and all our little girls stayed home with Daddy (or were already asleep).

We had a fantastic time. What a treat to talk without interferences from little girls demanding our attention. We ate way too much sugar and talked about everything from Barbies, pajamas, colo-rectal surgery, vacations, bilingualism, waxing, and politics. There was no need to watch what we said, and no reason to watch how much sugar we ate. Oranges gave us some semblance of feeling healthy.

My contribution to the night was peppermint bark. Williams and Sonoma be damned, make it yourself. I am by no means a chocolate making expert, so anyone can do this. If you know how to temper chocolate (to make it solid again at room temperature and a little but shiny), great. I don't, but I try. Either way, it is ridiculously easy and highly addictive. Just keep it in the fridge and no one will know the difference.

Peppermint Bark

4 candy canes

16 ounces semi-sweet or dark chocolate

10 drops peppermint extract

16 ounces white chocolate

1. Prepare a rimmed cookie sheet by lining it with parchment paper.

2. With candy canes still their wrapper bash them lightly with the handle of a knife or a wooden spoon. Don't bash too hard or you will have candy cane dust everywhere. Unwrap them over a bowl.

3. Chop semi/dark chocolate coarsely. In a bowl set over a pot of simmering water melt chocolate slowly. Pull off the heat just before it is fully melted. Stir to finish melting. Let sit, stirring occasionally, for a few minutes, until it is still warm, but not hot. Stir in the peppermint extract. Pour and spread around prepared pan.

4. While the semi/dark chocolate is resting, coarsely chop the white chocolate and melt in a bowl set over a pot of simmering water. Pull off the heat just before it is fully melted. Stir to finish melting. Let sit, stirring occasionally, for a few minutes, until it is still warm, but not hot. Pour directly over the semi/dark chocolate.

5. Sprinkle the candy cane bits over it all.

6. Cool in the fridge until hard. Break into bite size pieces.

The Emotional Eater

The perfect brownie can make anyone feel better. I've been feeling the need to eat a lot of brownies lately. Not that I need more things brown in my life, what with the mud flat currently surrounding the house. And the mud piles in the backyard and the muddy paw prints and footprints littered over the hardwood... But these brownies really do make you feel better.

They are dense yet still a bit cakey. They are fudgy but not heavy. They are a hug in a square crumbly package. With a glass of milk at lunchtime or a stiff scotch at bedtime they fill you with love. Sure I have a great Hubby and the girls can do that too, but the perfect brownie is just for me.

It's hard to not feel better when you start with chocolate and butter. Seriously, not much gets better than that, on their own or melted together in fantastic richness. I need to make them without the Monster around or else she takes them both and messes up my measurements.

Okay, maybe it's not just her who snitches tastes along the way... Somehow it is naughty when I dip my finger to lick the chocolate, and just messy and fun when the Monster does it.

When all is said and done and the oven brings out the chocolate scent the hugs begin. It is almost painful to wait for them to bake and cool. Warm brownies are more fudgy, but I prefer them cool and dense. A good brownie can make you feel comforted and warm, a bad one leaves you cold and cranky.

About 13 years ago I worked at a health food store with a bakery in it. Beyond the granola and ultra-healthy food, we specialized in items for people with restricted diets. At one point that summer the chef and I took on a mission to create a healthy brownie. We tried multiple substitutions like carob for chocolate, fake eggs, brown rice syrup, and more. None of them worked. This was before some good gluten free recipes were readily available. Eventually we decided that we would go back to basics and make a recipe with real food - butter, eggs, chocolate, brown sugar, and unbleached flour. This was before the slow food movement or Michael Pollan. You know what? They were amazing brownies! Sadly I lost the recipe in the post-university moves.

After experimenting with many recipes I finally found The One. It never fails me, it's fast, has only a few ingredients, and results in a perfect brownie. The recipe comes from a cookbook I picked up on a trip to New York. Broke and spending an afternoon with a quilting friend in Brooklyn I picked up The Brooklyn Cookbook. Really just a hardcover community cookbook, the book is filled with personal anecdotes and recipes from locals. The perfect brownie comes from this book.

What makes a bad brownie? To me that means anything that is not chocolate related inside. No nuts for me, I hate the sudden change in texture when you bite into a brownie with nuts. I don't like glaze or icing because it changes the mouthfeel. On a cupcake yes, but not on a brownie. I've added chocolate chips, even mint ones, and raspberries before, but it's not my favourite. Just a plain, simple brownie, thank-you.

The Perfect Brownie

(adapted from The Brooklyn Cookbook)


4 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1/2 cup unsalted butter
3 eggs
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup flour

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease an 8 inch square baking pan.
2. Melt the chocolate and butter together in a bowl set over a pan of simmering water. When melted set aside and let the mixture cool.
3. Beat the eggs with the salt until foamy. Gradually add the sugar and vanilla, beating until the mixture is creamy. Quickly stir in the cooled chocolate mixture, then the flour. If you are going to add anything like chocolate chips or nuts (!) this is the time to do it.
4. Pour into the greased baking pan and bake for 20-25 minutes, until the center is set but still a bit giggley. Cool before cutting.

Ice Cream Cures All!

I'm sure at one point in history, perhaps after the invention of the ice cream maker, that headlines around the world screamed the truth about ice cream. It really can cure all, at least for the ten or twenty minutes it takes to let the seduction and relief to melt on your tongue. Profound sadness, a hot day, cramps, or even the celebration of a day well done - all are made better by ice cream.

In an effort to clean out the garden before this week's frosts set in I picked all the mint. Planted in anticipation of never made summer mojitos there was a lot of mint. A perfect opportunity to make Hubby's favourite, mint chocolate chip ice cream. I found what seemed to be a straighforward recipe, went shopping for chocolate, and patiently made my ice cream.

I say patiently made my ice cream because during this process I learned a few more lessons in ice cream making.

Fifth lesson in ice cream making: Make the custard or whatever base you are using the day before. I steeped the mint leaves in the cream on one afternoon, made the custard after the babes were in bed, and after covering with plastic wrap, refrigerated the custard until the following afternoon. A really cold base means the ice cream freezes faster and there are less ice crystals. In other words, creamier ice cream.

Sixth lesson in ice cream making: When you are putting the ice cream in a container to harden, place plastic wrap directly on top of the ice cream. This too reduces ice crystals = creamier creamy ice cream.

Seventh lesson in ice cream making: if you are putting chocolate in the ice cream, let the Monster eat some chocolate. Better yet, make chocolate chocolate ice cream. She liked the ice cream well enough, but she kept asking for more chocolate.

I tried to follow the recipe exactly, hoping for good direction. Unfortunately, I had less mint than they called for and not enough half and half. But I am tremendously happy with the way I did things. The only thing I would change is to use less chocolate, yes, less chocolate. Just an ounce or so. When you are chopping it yourself you get lots of little pieces that, at times, overpowered the ice cream. I would also halve the recipe. This nearly overwhelmed my ice cream maker. It makes a good amount of ice cream, more than this family needs sitting around in the freezer.

Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream
(adapted from The Kitchn)

1 1/2 cups fresh mint leaves, washed
2 cups half and half cream
1 cup whipping cream
1 cup milk
1 cup sugar
Pinch of salt
4 egg yolks
1 tsp vanilla
5-6 ounces chopped semi-sweet chocolate
1. Bruise the mint leaves with a mortar and pestle, or simply the butt end of a wooden spoon, until you can really smell the mint.
2. Whisk the creams, milk, sugar, and salt together. Toss in the mint leaves and heat until hot, but not boiling or simmering. Cover and remove from heat. Let sit for an hour or more. Refrigerate after a few hours if you are not making the custard right away.
3. Strain the mint leaves from the cream base. Heat to a simmer.
4. Whisk the egg yolks. Add about a cup of the cream to the yolks, whisking vigourously. Then stir the egg mixture into the cream. Continue to cook, whisking continously, until the custard is thick. Stir in the vanilla.
5. Strain the custard into a clean bowl. Place plastic wrap directly on the surface on the custard and refrigerate a few hours or over night.
6. When the custard is cold, make ice cream according to your appliance's directions.
7. Chop chocolate. Add chocolate to the ice cream maker just before your ice cream is done. Pour into a container and place in the freezer to harden for a few hours before enjoying.