Recipe for the Ultimate Cake?

How can you go wrong with Guinness AND Irish Whiskey?  I stumbled on this Irish gem of a dessert.   If I wasn't going to be in England next week (for business) I would have requested it as my birthday cake.  

The smokey carmel sauce sounds intriging (from the book Cheater BBQ), I wonder if you could smoke brown sugar in a smoker prior to making the sauce rather than using liquid smoke?

Here's a link to the original article from the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle from the book:  Elegant Irish Cooking.  I'll report back if I get a chance to try it first hand.

Biddy Mulligan's Dublin Cake:

Biddy Mulligan's Dublin Cake

We tested this recipe with Guinness Stout and Jameson's Irish whiskey. Be sure to use cake flour instead of all-purpose flour. Cake flour's lower protein content yields a baked good that is more tender and crumbly. Adapted from Noel C. Cullen's Elegant Irish Cooking (Lebhar-Friedman, $35).

• 2 cups cake flour ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground allspice
• ½ pound butter, softened to room temperature
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 2/3 cup Guinness stout
• 2 cups golden raisins
• 1 cup dried currants
• ½ cup chopped walnuts (optional)
• ¼ cup Irish whiskey, plus more to taste

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Lightly grease a 9-inch round cake pan, line the bottom with a round of parchment paper and lightly grease the parchment paper. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, salt, baking soda and allspice. Set aside.

Using a standing mixer fitted with paddle, cream butter and brown sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy. (You can also use a hand-held electric mixer.) Add eggs, one at a time, and mix well after each addition.

Fold flour mixture into egg mixture. Stir in Guinness, raisins, currants and walnuts. Pour batter into prepared cake pan and bake for 1 hour. Then turn the oven temperature down to 300 and bake for another 25 to 35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean (or with just a crumb or two sticking).

Remove cake pan from oven and allow cake to cool in the pan completely. Pierce the surface of the cake with fork or skewer. Run a knife around the edge of the cake where it meets the pan and remove the cake from the pan. Brush the Irish whiskey over the top of the cake where the perforations were made and wrap in wax or parchment paper and store in a cool, dry area for a couple days before serving. If you like more whiskey flavor, brush the cake with an additional two tablespoons of whiskey once or twice during the waiting period. Serve with whipped cream or smoky caramel sauce (recipe follows).

Makes 8 to 12 servings.

Smoky Caramel Sauce

Caramelizing sugar requires careful attention and constant stirring to make sure you don't overcook the sugar. This recipe, from Mindy Merrell and R.B. Quinn's Cheater BBQ (Broadway, $17.95), is surprisingly quick, easy and foolproof. The secret is liquid smoke.

• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter
• 1 cup brown sugar
• ½ cup heavy cream
• ¼ cup corn syrup
• ½ teaspoon liquid smoke
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Combine all ingredients in a small saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until smooth and creamy.

Makes about 2 cups

 

Brewing for Necessity

Today I found myself brewing for necessity after coming to the end of my Pil-Ale keg sooner than planned. What a travesty, I was out of beer! After the initial shock, I collected myself, headed to my local homebrew shop and threw together a grain bill. Here's what I came up with:

Pretty standard Brown Ale, nice and simple!
11lbs of British Two-Row malted Barley
.5lbs American Crystal Malt 40L (for color and caramel goodness)
.5lbs American Crystal Malt 120L (more color and flavor)
Long mash
30min @ 130-135
60min @ 154
30min @ 158
Mash out @ 160-168 30min
75min boil
2oz Fuggles Hops (pellets)
1.25 oz for 60 min
.50 oz for 30 min
.25 oz for 10 min
SafAle S-05 dry ale yeast (no time for propagation)

Surprisingly this turns out to be my 15th batch over the last 2 years. So far it looks, smells, and tastes great! Original gravity is 1.048. Even got a little better brewing efficiency thanks to a new false bottom I picked up while at the shop. More on that next post..

I'll keep you posted as this beer develops. Could use some help naming it...

Cheers,
-D

Making Wine @ Home (Part 2)

This is the second post following the progress of my winemaking adventure from fermenter to glass. Please check out the other posts in the series.

First off you need to gather your equipment and sanitize everything that will come in contact with the wine (I use Star San). The only equipment you will need to kick off fermentation will be a primary fermenter that holds at least 8 US gallons, long handled spoon or paddle, airlock, wine thief (turkey baster works fine) to take a sample to measure specific gravity and a hydrometer or refractometer.

I have removed most all plastic from my home brewery, but I find that an 8-10 gallon food grade bucket, (non food grade plastic can leech harmful toxins) is still the best primary fermenter for wine. While I prefer glass for wine for secondary fermentation, primary fermentation is just too violent due to the high gravity of wine and carboys easily channel that energy into a high pressure fountain! Unless you don't mind repainting your walls and ceiling, a nice big plastic bucket will do nicely.

Open up your wine kit and you will typically find a large bag of grape juice (about 4 gal), Bentonite, Potassium Metabisulphite, Potassium Sorbate, Chitosan, Yeast, Oak Chips, and possibly a small bag of juice to add sweetness before bottling.First step is to dissolve the Bentonite in hot water in the bottom of the fermenter. I heat up about 2 liters of filtered water in an electric tea kettle, dump it into the fermenter and stir the heck out of it. It will look like muddy water...that's because it is.  Bentonite is a special type of clay that is used for its ability to help draw out protein particles from the wine and allow them to settle out and filter the wine right there in the fermenter.

Next, carefully open up your bag of juice.  The box should have a punch out that supports the neck of the spout to make pouring easier.  A bottle opener comes in handy for removing the lid. Its a lot of sticky liquid so pour carefully.  Next, poor a gallon of hot filtered water into the juice bag to rinse out any remaining juice.  I use the electric tea kettle again to heat up filtered water.  There's a lot of nasty stuff in your water heater's tank, so please resist the temptation to use hot tap water.  It won't kill you (unless its been stagnant for months), but it won't do your wine much good.

 Top off your fermenter to the 6 gallon mark (or the total volume your instructions call for) with filtered water and stir the heck out of it for at least a full minute.  This is an important step because it aerates the must dissolving oxygen into it.  This is very important to giving the yeast a healthy start.  Now is a good time to take a sample and measure gravity (I used my handy refractometer, so I only needed a drop).  Your specific gravity should measure between 1.080 and 1.100 depending on style.  If it is lower you have added too much water, higher and you probably didn't add enough (see your kits instructions for details).

If there are packets of oak chips or elderflowers, add them now and stir them below the surface.  Check your temperature to make sure your must is between 65 and 75°F.  (Temperatures outside this range are not healthy for the yeast).  Temps higher than 80°F will likely kill them (that's a bad thing).

Sprinkle the yeast over the must and put the lid and airlock on the fermenter.  You should begin to notice bubbles in the airlock within a few hours or the next day at the latest.  Now just let it sit for about a week and the the yeast do its magic...

In part 3 we'll check the gravity to monitor progress of fermentation and, if ready, rack to a secondary fermenter.

Cheers,

-D

other posts in the series

Homebrew Recipe: Pil-Ale Ice

Here's a happy accident.  I recently brewed a batch of beer and only had access to pilsner base malt.  I cobbled together an all-grain batch using the following:

12lbs Pilsner malt
1lb Crystal malt (20L)
1oz Kent Gouldings hops (pellets) -60min
1oz Fuggles hops (whole) - 30min
1/2 oz leftover homegrown Chinook hops (whole) -15min
SafAle American Ale yeast (dry)

I mashed for 90min at 154° and original gravity hit 1.050 despite sub 60% efficiency.

It fermented in the Ferminator for two weeks at 66-68°  to a final gravity of 1.014 leaving about 4.7%abv.   I kegged it, force carbonated it and served it for the first time just before Christmas.  Its quite a tasty brew.   Even one of my my bud light drinking friends asked for a second glass.  Very pronounced pilsner type aroma with a little wheat-like fruitiness up front.  The beer finishes surprisingly dry with a nice hop finish.  The beer turned out great, but the appearance was cloudy (which makes it look like a wheat beer too).  The head retention just plain sucked.

Then, I accidently froze the beer keg while converting my mini fridge to a kegerator!  I was pissed and figured the batch was doomed.  After thawing the keg and re-carbonating it I found that the head retention vastly improved and the beer cleared up considerably after the first few pours.  My assumption is that some of the particulate matter and yeast that didn't flocculate was shocked to the bottom by the freezing process and was removed in the first few pours.  I can't explain the difference in head retention but it is dramatic.  Any ideas?

The beer is quite tasty with a more subtle fruitiness.  Significantly improved by chance!

Cheers,
D

"Kiddie Homebrew"

A couple of times a year I mix up a batch of root beer for the kids, usually when we plan to have guests to help us celebrate a holiday weekend. This weekend we are having friends over for some holiday cheer and desserts, so this morning I made some "homebrew" root beer for the kiddies to enjoy while we shared our favorite cocktails, homebrew and wine with the adults.

This is a really simple recipe and quite tasty!

I use McCormick's Root Beer concentrate. I have tried a couple of others from the local homebrew shop, but the kids always prefer the McCormick. I force carbonate the rootbeer in a corny keg for instant gratification and to allow me to adjust the amount of foam. An alternative would be to replace the cold water with soda water, or put the rootbeer into a rubbermaid cooler with a few pounds of dry ice (great for Halloween parties). The traditional method would be to bottle condition with ale yeast allowing enough fermentation to occur to carbonate the root beer. This could be done in two liter bottles to minimize the danger of bottle bombs!

Ingredients for a 3 gallon batch:
2oz bottle McCormick's Root Beer Concentrate
1.5gal boiling water
3 cups Dark Brown Cane Sugar
3 cups white sugar
1.5 gal cold water
Dissolve the sugar in 1.5gal boiling water, remove the heat and add the full bottle of root beer extract.

If you're kegging (highly recommended), Sanitize your corny keg just as you were preparing it for beer. Pour the contents form the boil into the keg followed by 1.5gal of cold water, seal and pressurize with CO2 to about 35psi. I then refrigerated the keg shake it heavily to speed the absorption of CO2. Within 18-24hrs you will have tasty draft root beer on tap!

Cheers!

-D

Homebrew Recipe: Chocolate Stout

I just tapped into my first attempt at a Chocolate Stout. Many of my favorite beers are stouts, yet my track record from brewing stouts is not very good. My stouts have not had as full of a body as they should and tend to have more of a roasted or coffee-like character than what I was shooting for. I brewed this beer at the end of August. The result is one of my better attempts, but my goals still seem elusive.

This beer has excellent head retention, is nearly black in color with tan foam. The highlight is nice chocolate and malt aroma with a background of hops. The flavor profile may need more aging to balance out better and it finishes too bitter for me.

I over-carbonated this beer which makes it seem thin. As I allowed the beer to sit, warm, and release carbonation it began to take on a nice velvety texture in the mouth. I've released mush of the pressure in the keg to reduce the level of carbonation. I am hopeful that this beer will balance out its bitterness a little better by spring. If not, I may use it for a blending experiment with a lightly hopped full bodied dark brown ale.

On a positive note, I had a piece of sweet chocolate while sampling the beer and the combination of flavors was very nice. This would pair very nicely with a sweet dessert as-is!  It just has too much of a lingering bitterness to enjoy on its own for my tastes.

Here's the recipe (all-grain 154° mash):

12lb two-row malted barley
2lb Dingemans Chocolate Malt
1lb Dingemans "Special B"
1lb Flaked Barley (for body and head retention)
1/2lb Malto-Dextrin (for body)
Hops: East Kent Gouldings 1oz 75min, .5oz 60min, .5oz 30min; 1oz. whole Chinook (homegrown) 20min; .1oz Whole Willamette (homegrown) for 15min approx 51 IBUs overall (and I wonder why its bitter)
8oz Cocoa powder

Yeast: SafAle English Ale (dry)

So far here are my ratings:

• Appearance: B • Aroma: B • Taste: C- •

Overall: C-

I'll be sure to keep you up to date on its progress,

-D

Spent Grain Bread

Happiness is a warm grain bed!  It pains me to part with the heavenly remains of a brewing session, but until now I haven't come up with anything more useful than composting for my hop garden.

This year I have experimented a bit in recycling brewing byproducts into bread.  My first attempt to salvage yeast from the bottom of my fermentor to make yeast rolls was a miserable failure.  I had left hop leaves in my fermenter and the hoppy flavor did not do much for the rolls.  On top of that, I was too impatient and didn't allow my yeast to get a good enough start.  The net result was chewy, bitter bread pucks that my family will not forget soon enough.

This week I decided to try and use some of my spent grains from the "Fermentation Friday Ale" to make a whole grain bread.  A baker I am not, but with a little tweaking I think I may be on to something good here...

I took about three cups of spent grain and mixed it with a cup of warm water, cup of flour, and a package of dry yeast.  I put this in my oven for most of the day with the light on to get a starter going.  later that evening I mixed in more water (3 cups) and flour (5+cups) until I got a suitable ball of dough (I think I better watch a cooking show to figure out the proper technique because I made a big mess).  Then I let that ball rise to over twice its size (couple of hours while we made some ABT's), fashioned a couple of primitive loaves and stuck them in the oven at 450° for about 30min.

They are nice and crusty on the outside like sourdough and hearty on the inside.  This bread would go great with soup.  Quite tasty if I do say so myself, and our 16 month old was begging for more

Things I might try next time:

• Try with a batch of more interesting specialty grains
• Fashion more attractive loaves and let them rise in their shape before placing in the oven
• Try using beer yeast and/or add a little beer to the mix.

Happy Baking!

D

Fermentation Friday - a new tradition?

Damn the door-busters, "Black Friday" just became "Fermentation Friday" for me!

After sharing my latest homebrews with friends visiting for the holiday we decided to break out the brew pots while the women folk were out for the day.

This batch was brewed in the spirit of Thanksgiving leftovers.  The recipe was dictated by supplies I had on hand to avoid dragging the kiddies out to the homebrew shop (special thanks to Tim for helping with both the beer and kids Friday).  As beers go, its a mutt, so I'm not sure what style category it fits in. Starting gravity settled in at 1.050 so the alcohol content to be about 5%.

Here's the recipe (5 Gallon batch):
12lbs Pilsner malt
1lb Crystal malt (20L)
1oz Kent Gouldings hops (pellets) -60min
1oz Fuggles hops (whole) - 30min
1/2 oz leftover homegrown Chinook hops (whole) -15min
SafAle American Ale yeast (dry)

However it turns out you can follow its progress all the way to the tapper right here!
Cheers,
-D