irish car bomb brownies

Posted on March 29, 2012 by hilary924

we all know i’m a crazy overachiever when it comes to desserts. i may be half-assing my way through many many other parts of my life, but when it comes to treats, i want them to be made from scratch.

except for brownies.

i love me a good brownie. rich, fudgy, with chewy edges.

but from scratch brownies? you know the pitfalls. too cakey. not gooey. not chocolaty enough. and ghirardelli box mix? it treats me right, every single time. i like a brownie i can count on.

well, this recipe may break me from my ghirardelli habit.

these brownies are insanely chocolaty and nearly as easy to whip together as a box mix.

at least compared to my other overachiever dessert recipes!

there’s no waiting for butter to soften, there’s no need to use the stand mixer. you will, however, just have to resign yourself to getting chocolate everywhere. unless, unlike me, you have self control and can keep your fingers out of the chocolaty batter.

like many of my recipe discoveries, i found this recipe to use up the bottles of guinness that have been lurking in my kitchen since st. patrick’s last year when i made these irish car bomb cupcakes that rocked my world.

but cupcakes. they feel so daunting. they are not a weeknight recipe. they are not a sunday-afternoon-crap-i-forgot-we-agreed-to-bring-dessert-to-that-dinner-party friendly.

these brownies are. and they give you way more instant chocolate gratification. extremely dense and fudgy. almost like a flourless chocolate cake by with a bit more of a bite. the edges won’t get that great chewy character of the box brownie, but these are by far the best from-scratch brownies i’ve ever had.

plus, they are a GREAT use for stray bottles of dark beer you may have lying around.

my first night in england on my year abroad, a group of us naive americans ordered a round of guinness at our first pub outing. not realizing that we were in london, not dublin. and that fosters or carling, or even cider, would be not only a more traditional, but also a more tasty choice.

don’t worry, by the end of the year we all managed to get quite high marks in our chosen extracurricular: drinking habits of uni students.

just thinking about snakebites to this day makes me feel a bit queasy.

anyway. guiness, while foul by the pint, is delightful with chocolate. the bitter, sweet, and caramel notes of the beer complements and draws out the best in good dark chocolate.

Irish Car Bomb Brownies

The original recipe had stout in the glaze-like frosting, but I found that to be a bit intense. the second time I made these, I added a glug of Bailey’s instead and much preferred the sweeter flavor as a contrast. I’ve also sprinkled sea salt on top, and that’s pretty tasty too. Adapted from Epicurious – find the recipe here.

1/2 cup stout (such as Guinness)
16 ounces semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, chopped, divided
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (2 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt, divided
1/4 cup Bailey’s liquour

preparation

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a 9x9x2″ metal baking pan with foil, leaving a 2″ overhang. Bring stout to a boil in a medium saucepan; cook until reduced to 1/4 cup, about 8 minutes. Let cool.

Stir 12 ounces chocolate and 1 cup butter in a medium metal bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water until melted and smooth. Whisk sugar, eggs, and vanilla in a large bowl to blend. Gradually whisk in chocolate mixture, then 1/4 cup stout from pan. Fold in flour and 1 1/4 teaspoons salt. Pour batter into prepared pan.

Bake brownies until surface begins to crack and a tester inserted into center comes out with a few moist crumbs attached, 35–40 minutes. Transfer pan to a wire rack and let cool for at least 20 minutes. Alternatively, these work well in mini muffin tins – bake 10-12 minutes, and then let set in the tin for about an hour (or cheat and let them firm up in the freezer for 15 minutes).

Stir remaining 4 ounces chocolate in a medium metal bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water until melted and smooth. Add Bailey’s, remaining 2 tablespoons butter, and 1/4 teaspoon salt; whisk until well blended.

Pour warm glaze over brownies. Let stand at room temperature until glaze is set, about 40 minutes. DO AHEAD: Can be made 8 hours ahead. Cover and let stand at room temperature.

Using foil overhang, lift brownie from pan; cut into squares

twd: baking with julia: soda bread

Posted on March 20, 2012 by hilary924

how was your st. patrick's day? did your neighborhood turn into a green-tinged frat party like mine? the gloriously summer-like weather brought out all kinds of leprechauns.

after downing more than my fair share of a pitcher of strawberry margaritas, i felt old in the best possible way heading home at about 8 pm to continue celebrations on the couch with ryan reynolds, a bottle of bubbles and the yogi.

this soda bread came together in a snap for lunch the next day.

never one to leave a perfectly delightful, four ingredient recipe alone, i added cheese.

gloriously vibrantly orange sharp cheddar. i wish i could say it was of irish origins, but my corner grocery really just doesn't have that type of selection. all their irish cheddar was white.

and as far as we're at it, cheddar isn't really proper cheddar if it's from anywhere other than somerset england.

and their cheddar isn't usually orange anyway. you have to dye it to get it that bright.

but then, traditional soda bread isn't supposed to have cheddar cheese in it.

not even currants and caraway. that's totally american.

kind of like st. patrick's day.

wait, where was i?

non-irish cheddar. at least it lowered the bread's carbon footprint, right?

anyway, i threw tradition to the winds, added orange cheddar for those lovely streaks and then a bit of caraway for a pop of anise flavor. i'd recommend the combination, but if i made this again i might be tempted to veer even further off the usual soda bread path and add onions and maybe even poppy seeds for crunch.

as an added bonus, i think the fat and moisture of the cheese helped the bread stay fresh a bit longer than advertised by the recipe, which promised the bread would go stale within hours.

i had some for breakfast and dinner the following day and it remained delightfully rich and dense, made even better by toasting to firm up the crumb. and then i finally pitched into the freezer to save myself from eating nothing but soda bread for the remainder of the week.

all in all, a winner of a st. patrick's day weekend.

for the recipe, and to see lots of other lovely blogs featuring this soda bread, visit tuesdays with dorie, my culinary mission, or chocolate moosey.

pretzel dogs

Posted on March 15, 2012 by hilary924

when i saw these bad boys on joy the baker, they solved an immediate problem. what to bring to a superbowl party hosted by a foodie couple that requested witty treats?

witty these are not, but they are the perfect homage to new york street food. soft, warm pretzels with just the right amount of chew. salty, savory, you-know-they-aren't-good-for-you goodness of a hot dog.

food really is the best part of sports, isn't it?

plus, i've been wanting to get into the pretzel bread game.

while it is completely ridiculous, the somm and i are more or less regulars at an amazing las vegas restaurant.

if we don't live in the same city, our favorite restaurant might as well be somewhere else anyway, right? we're just doing our best to prove proximity is overrated.

right? actually, not. not for husbands, and definitely not for pretzel rolls.

that restaurant has the best pretzel rolls i've ever eaten, hands down. i tried to recreate them, but failed. failed hard.

then we went to oktoberfest in munich. i ate my body weight in the bretzels the lovely madchen sold from their charming wicker-baskets wearing their dirndls.

there may also have been beer. take this as your subsitute gratuitous manchego shot. man, we love our fuzzy little mascots. also, i may have been too (tipsy?) busy eating pretzels to actually take a photo of them.

but munich? way further than either my husband or my vegas pretzel rolls.

back to the kitchen!

here's the thing about pretzels. the dough starts out nice and easy like a basic brioche or other buttery bread dough.

looks like play-doh, right?

finished up with a nice coat of butter, chunky salt and fresh cracked black pepper. and into the oven!

the magic of the pretzel – like the bagel – is the boil. in highly acidic water.

victory for these little suckers came from dumping an entire box of baking soda into the boiling water.

this is how you get the dark, chewy crust.

these were so good and so easy, i'm doubling down on the pretzel challenge. these were great – seriously, amazing sports-watching food, or even breakfast food if you're so inclined, and you know who i'm talking about - but they aren't the pure pretzel i've been craving.

plus, i recently sleuthed out that the real professionals use food-grade lye to boil their pretzels.

i'm going to say that again. lye.

you know, the stuff half-pint and pa used to make SOAP in the little house on the prairie books?

i know we live in an internet age, but i feel like there is a line you cross when you start ordering such products online. friends, it is a line i have now crossed. get ready. pretzel rolls are coming soon!

and if you need to borrow some food-grade lye to bake along with me . . . i'm pretty sure i now have a lifetime supply.

Find the pretzel dog recipe and really super easy to follow instructions here.

twd: baking with julia: rugelach

Posted on March 6, 2012 by hilary924

as a kid growing up in southern california, rugelach were not abundant. we were an oatmeal cookie kind of family. as an adult, the cardboard specimens i ran across left me unimpressed. they always seems so dry. the filling wasn't gooey or rich enough.

this recipe CHANGED MY MIND. for serious. it was a multistage process, but it was worth every moment.

there was rolling. slash beating of that mighty hunk of dough with a rolling pin.

there was chilling. more rolling. slicing, dipping. way too much eating.

but these rugelach were some of the best cookies i've ever had. rich and buttery, coated in cinnamon sugar that gets crisp, caramelized, chewy.

i made two types – apricot and dried cherry, with homemade apricot lekvar, and dark chocolate with nuts and cinnamon.

lekvar is a type of jam made from dried apricots. the flavor is deep and rich.

i think maybe my secret was an excessive amount of filling. i did not manage to create much of a spiral effect, and that is even after i scooped a bunch of filling out of the way post first attempt, which, by the way, was fantastic over greek yogurt. no homemade lekvar went to waste here!

i'm pretty sure this isn't what the rolls of deliciousness were supposed to look like.

the dough kept melting and needing to be rechilled, making me curse the concept of rolled pastry, but silently, so the somm wouldn't think i was going too crazy.

the result was cookies that are almost like slices of pie – rich, chewy centers of dried fruit or chocolate, surrounded by the tender cream cheese crust.

just because it was a novel trick for me, i'm going to say that rolling the crust out with a dusting of powdered sugar instead of flour helped keep the crust so light and tender despite my repeated mangling attempts to get it to behave.

they aren't pretty, but man were they good.

this recipe made a lot of cookies. i tried foisting them off on friends, neighbors, coworkers, but still ended up freezing about a dozen.

and discovered a whole new way to love rugelach. oh, good lord. frozen, they are even chewier and more satisfying.

i really felt initiated into the community of rugelach lovers when describing my triumph to a friend's mother who seriously knows her way around good pastry and she whispered . . . have you tried them frozen?

yes, barbara. yes i have. there's no going back now.

seriously, if you have a free weekend, do yourself a favor and make these cookies. just be sure you have a distribution plan, or you WILL end up eating them all yourself. find the recipe in this book, or at tuesdays with dorie, including this week's hosts jessica of my baking heart and margaret of the urban hiker.

and here's this week's gratuitous shot of manchego, the cat who is too cool for rugelach.

Manchego's Kitchen

it's his kitchen. i just cook here.

Monthly Archives: March 2012