Irish Car Bomb Celebration Cake

An Irish Car Bomb is fairly simple: 

1) Fill a shot glass half way with Jameson Irish Whiskey.
2) Top the shot with Bailey's Irish Cream.
3) Fill a pint glass with Guinness.
4) Drop the full shot into the pint, shot glass and all.
5) Drink with vigorous fervor until you see the bottom of the glass.
6) Bombs away.

This past weekend was full of surprises and excitement for my family.  What better way to celebrate? With Irish Car Bombs was the obvious answer (a newly growing tradition in my family) but I needed to up the ante.  Irish Car Bombs in cake form?  Why yes, of course.  Because if you can combine booze + sugar + pastry in the same package for a party, you're going to have success.  

I spent the afternoon in the kitchen recreating every part of an Irish Car Bomb into a sultry, sweet treat.  Guinness was going into both chocolate cake and chocolate sauce.  Whiskey found a new friend in salted caramel.  Bailey's saluted to it's best performance yet in the perfected whipped cream topping.  The Dream Team was forming. If you are ever looking for a fun challenge - start thinking of ways you can turn booze into desserts.  You'll be entertained for the whole afternoon.

Treat your family this holiday season with this amazing creation.  If you serve it with a real Irish Car Bomb on the side, the Irish Gods will smile upon you and you will be my hero.  Cheers to that!

Irish Car Bomb Celebration Cake

Guinness Stout Chocolate Cake:

Ingredients

1 cup Guinness stout

1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature

¾ cup Dutch-process cocoa powder

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 cups granulated sugar

1½ teaspoons baking soda

¾ teaspoons salt

2 eggs

2/3 cup sour cream

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9x13 pan with nonstick spray.

Bring the Guinness and butter to a simmer in a heavy, medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the cocoa powder and whisk until the mixture is smooth. Cool slightly.

Whisk the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt in a large bowl to combine.

Using an electric mixer, beat the eggs and sour cream on medium speed until combined. Add the Guinness-chocolate mixture to the egg mixture and beat just to combine.

Reduce the speed to low, add the flour mixture and beat briefly. Using a rubber spatula, fold the batter until completely combined. Pour batter in cake pan.

Bake until a thin knife inserted into the center comes out clean, about 30 minutes.

Cool the cake in the pan.

Guinness Chocolate Sauce:

Ingredients

1 cup Guinness 

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 cup cocoa powder

1/8 teaspoon salt

Directions

Bring everything to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer to thicken, about 5 minutes.

Let cool and enjoy!

Salted Whiskey Caramel Sauce:

Ingredients

1 1/2 cup Brown Sugar

3/4 stick Butter (6 Tablespoons)

3/4 cup heavy cream

2-4 Tablespoons Irish whiskey (to taste)

Generous pinch of salt

Directions

Mix all ingredients in a medium saucepan over medium-low to medium heat. Cook while whisking gently for 5 to 7 minutes, until thicker. Turn off heat. Serve warm or refrigerate until cold.

If sauce is thin, just continue cooking for a few more minutes.

Bailey’s Whipped Cream:

Ingredients

1 cup cold heavy whipping cream

¼ cup powdered sugar

1-3 Tablespoons Bailey’s Irish cream

Directions

In a medium bowl, whisk heavy cream until cream just starts to thicken.  Add sugar and Bailey’s (to taste) and whisk until soft peaks form.

Serve chilled.

To Serve:

Cut squares of cake and place on a plate.  Generously drizzle both sauces over the cake and top with a dollop of whipped cream.  

Serve, swoon, celebrate.  

Possibly the Best Blueberry Crumb Cake. Ever.

It's August.  Do you know what that means?  Blueberry Season.  Blueberries.  Everywhere.

It's time to get prepared for our bountiful harvest.  Crumb Cake is the perfect snack to munch on in anticipation.  

Is this the best Crumb Cake ever?  I may put my money on it.  It's moist, packed with blueberries, topped with the perfect cinnamon-y crust and has a killer crumb.  

Thanks to Smitten Kitchen we get to enjoy this recipe before, through and after blueberry season.  Heck, even when we're not in season, put any fruit in it.  This cake is meant to give all year long.  

Blueberry Crumb Cake 

Topping:
5 tablespoons (40 grams) all-purpose flour
1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
4 tablespoons (1/4 cup, 2 ounces or 55 grams) unsalted butter, cold is fine
Pinch of salt

Cake:
2 cups minus 1 tablespoon (i.e. 1 3/4 cups + 3 tablespoons or 240 grams) all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon table salt
4 tablespoons (1/4 cup, 2 ounces or 55 grams) unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup (150 grams) granulated sugar
Zest of 1 lemon
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 pint (2 to 2 2/3 cups, 12 to 16 ounces, or 340 to 455 grams; see Note) fresh blueberries, clean and dry
1/2 cup milk, whole is ideal, any kind should work
1/2 cup (55 grams) walnuts, chopped medium fine (optional)
Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting (optional)

Heat oven to 375°F. Butter a 9-inch round baking pan (with at least 2″ sides) and dust it lightly with flour; line it with a round of parchment paper.

Prepare the topping by mixing the flour, sugar, cinnamon and salt, then cutting the butter in with a pastry blender, fork or your fingertips until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, and salt until combined. In a large bowl, beat butter, sugar and zest together until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla and beat until combined. Beat in 1/3 of the dry ingredient mixture until just combined, followed by 1/2 the milk; repeat with remaining dry ingredients and milk, finishing with the dry mixture. The batter will be very stiff, but don’t fret. Fold blueberries into cake batter until evenly distributed.

Scoop cake batter into prepared pan and smooth so that it is flat. If using walnuts, scatter them on top. Sprinkle with prepared streusel. Bake in heated oven for 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the cake comes out batter-free. You can let the cake cool complete in the pan on a rack, or just cool it in the pan for 20 minutes before flipping it out onto a cooling rack, removing the parchment paper lining, and flipping it back onto a plate. Dust with confectioners’ sugar, if using.

Do ahead: Cake keeps covered with plastic or foil at room temperature for three days. If longer, it might be best to keep it in the fridge. It gets more moist each day.

Kentucky Bourbon Cake with Blueberry Bourbon Basil Glaze

What's better than drinking delicious Bourbon?  Baking with it.  And drinking it.  At the same time.

Let's get Frisky with Whiskey.

This recipe was inspired by a conversation my friend and I were having about the glories of the great state of Oregon. Vineyards, forest, ocean, crater lakes, beer, all the hipster material you could ask for.  What's not to love?
We started an in-depth discussion about doughnuts (that's normal) and in particular the creative flavors of Blue Star Donuts in downtown Portland.  He mentioned their iconic doughnut that is enrobed in a Blueberry Bourbon Basil glaze and I'm pretty sure I stopped listening all together. The mere imagining of tasting all of these flavors together took over my mind.  I decided right there that I must create a version of this earth-shattering flavor vortex.

How could I up the ante?  Well why not put the glaze on top of a whole cake instead of a doughnut.  And why not bake it in a tube pan so it looks like an enormous doughnut anyway (zing!).  And if there's Bourbon in the glaze, there's no reason why it shouldn't be in the cake too.  It's fairness like this that should be more prevalent in this world.

It's not that I doubted Blue Star, but you really don't know the magic of how these flavors meld together until you taste it yourself.  Sweet and tart blueberry, herbal-lemon-slight anise basil, the spicy vanilla Bourbon.  And then there's the cake!  Oh, the cake.  The buttery vanilla and Bourbon pillow upon which the glaze happily rests.
There's one Blue Star reviewer online who states: "Blueberry Basil Bourbon - sounds weird, TASTE LIKE RAINBOWS"

I concur, my friend. I concur.

So celebrate Rainbows and America and crack open a bottle of Kentucky Bourbon.  It makes measuring flour and butter that much more fun.
And, in the end, you can have your cake and drink it too.

Kentucky Bourbon Cake with Blueberry Bourbon Basil Glaze

Ingredients:

Cake:
3 cups (12 ounces) sifted cake flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. fine sea salt
1 cup (8 ounces) unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups (10 1/2 ounces) sugar
1/2 cup (3 3/4 ounces) firmly packed brown sugar
4 eggs, at room temperature
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup bourbon
1 cup buttermilk, at room temperature

Glaze:

1 cup fresh blueberries, rinsed and dried
1 tablespoon fresh basil, chopped
2-3 tablespoons bourbon
3 cups sifted powdered sugar

Directions:
Grease a 10-cup metal tube or bundt pan. Center an oven rack and preheat the oven to 350°F.

To make the cake, sift together the flour, baking powder, soda, and salt in a bowl, then whisk the mixture by hand to ensure that the ingredients are well mixed.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugars together on medium-high speed until fluffy, about 5 minutes. As you make the batter, stop the mixer frequently and scrape the paddle and the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Blend in the eggs one at a time and add the vanilla. Combine the bourbon and buttermilk in a small bowl. With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture in three parts, alternating with the buttermilk-bourbon mixture in two parts, beginning and ending with the flour. After each addition, mix until just barely blended and stop and scrape the bowl. Stop the mixer before the last of the flour has been incorporated and complete the blending by hand with a rubber spatula.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and spread it out evenly. Place the pan in the oven and bake until the cake is golden and springs back when touched, 40 to 45 minutes.  Let the cake cool completely and remove from the pan.

To make the glaze start by pulsing the blueberries, basil and 2 tablespoons bourbon in a food processor or blender until smooth.  

In a large bowl, measure out the powdered sugar and gradually stir in the blueberry mixture a few spoonfuls at a time until your desired consistency is reached (I used it all).  Taste and add the last tablespoon of bourbon if desired.  Drizzle over cooled cake.

Cheers to baking with libations.  ...Libaking?

I wont quit my day job.

Blueberry Gingerbread Cake

It's 2014.

...what?

Wait a minute, I feel like we're having deja vu.  I feel like we were just having the same conversation about how crazy it was that it was Labor Day.  And talking about a recipe that has blueberries baked into a delicious bread batter.  And swooning over how delicious Maine blueberries are. 

Yup.  That's exactly what's happening.  Again.  And I'm into it. 

Only now I look outside and all I see is a magical winter wonderland instead of a late summer sun-glistening lake.  And those blueberries, they're the same.  Except they've taken a long winters nap in our freezer, patiently waiting to awaken on a cold day like today and make everyone feel warm and summery and nostalgic.  

This recipe puts a summery bright burst on a winter holiday favorite: gingerbread.  The deep sweet of molasses with a ginger spice is perked up just enough by the bright freshness of the blueberry.  And oh, the amazing summer flavor is still there.  It's there and it's awesome.  You close your eyes and get lost in the time warp.... and in the end you don't care what time of year it is.  All you taste is delicious. 

Because what do you do when it's -11 degrees outside?  You bake, and you bake with what you have.  And if that means pulling out part of your summer harvest from the freezer, all the better.

Also, consider this Winter Blueberry recipe as Recipe 1 of 2 - with another coming your way tomorrow.  It's even more awesome...so get excited.

And in the meantime, get bakin'.

Blueberry Gingerbread Cake

Adapted from Martha Stewart and Smitten Kitchen

8 tablespoons (1 stick, 4 ounces or 115 grams) unsalted butter, cut into chunks, plus more for pan
1 cup water
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
2/3 cup packed dark-brown sugar
1/2 cup unsulfured molasses

1/2 cup honey or maple syrup
2 large eggs, room temperature, lightly beaten
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for pan
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground or freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 cups blueberries, fresh or frozen
Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting finished cake
Lightly sweetened whipped cream, essential for serving

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9×13-inch baking pan with parchment paper. Butter and flour parchment and sides of cake pan, or spray both with a nonstick baking spray.

Bring water to a boil in a medium saucepan (or large one, if you’d like to make the cake entirely in there) and add baking soda — it will foam up! this is fun! Let stand for 5 minutes, then stir in butter until melted. Whisk in dark brown sugar, molasses and fresh ginger, if using. Mixture is usually just lukewarm by now, but if it still feels quite hot to the touch, set it aside to 10 to 15 minutes to cool further before using.

Place flour, ground ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, salt and baking powder in a fine-mesh strainer or sifter so that you can sift them over the wet ones in a minute.

Transfer molasses mixture to a large mixing bowl if your saucepan isn’t large enough to make the batter in. Whisk in eggs until just combined. Sift dry ingredients over wet, then stir the wet and dry ingredients together until just combined.

Pour batter into prepared pan; bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Transfer cake to a wire rack and let cool completely. Once fully cool, cut around cake to make sure no parts are sticking to the side and invert cake out onto a rack, then onto a serving plate. Dust with confectioners’ sugar and cut into squares. Please, promise you’ll serve this with lightly sweetened, softly whipped cream. They’re made for each other.

Do ahead: Whipped cream needs to be stored in the fridge, of course. Cake keeps at room temperature for up to a week in an airtight container. 

Coconut Blueberry Bliss Cake

It’s Labor Day. 

 
…what?

How is it that the Memorial Day to Labor Day stretch goes by quicker every year? It’s a fascinating phenomenon we all seem to experience and have trouble accepting. It’s May, then September, and we don’t really know if those J months ever exist. This year I decided to use this feeling as a welcomed opportunity to find a way to embody it, to savor it; to somehow tangibly represent this time of year we all cherish so much. And doing so through a baked good seemed very appropriate.

In terms of summer, you cannot get more summery than hand-picked Maine blueberries. This is fact. And they must be picked from Blueberry Hill Farm in Acton, Maine. On a hot summer afternoon. After a morning woods run. And a swim in Great East Lake. But pre afternoon boat ride…and pre happy hour. With cold Sam Summers. Or Kahlua iced coffees. These are more facts. Are you writing this down? Stick with me here.

For fall, spices like cinnamon and nutmeg enter their prime time to shine come September. Apples start their harvests and have a direct destiny for pie pans and applesauce jars. Cinnamon and nutmeg will be at the ready on every kitchen counter post-harvest, ready to spice and make everything nice. Trust me on that one.

The beauty here is that we can find a middle ground for this seasonal divide; a culinary creation to bridge the gap of summer and fall. And it just so happens that this particular bridge combines all of the seasons’ best traits into one moist, sweet, brown sugar, cinnamony (new word), bursting-with-blueberry-goodness coffee cake. And the coconut? Well, why the heck not? I say. When one is able to give life an exotic, tropical twist – such as adding a crunchy coconut topping to your coffee cake - you say yes. This is another life fact. Jot that down.

Bottom line: make this cake for a special occasion or as a simple way to make your or someone else’s morning cup of coffee even better. It will please everyone’s palate and, most importantly, give us a helpful hand in saying so-long to a wonderful summer and welcome to a fall full of promise and even more flavor. Sounds like bliss to me.

Coconut Blueberry Bliss Cake

Streusel Topping:

1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted, plus more for coating
1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more for coating.
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1 cup unsweetened flaked coconut
1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Yogurt Cake:

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 1/2 cups packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup whole milk plain yogurt (or sour cream) at room temperature
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 healthy cup blueberries (fresh or frozen)

For the Streusel:

Heat the oven to 350F and arrange a rack in the middle. Coat a 9x13 inch pan with butter and flour or spray with Pam and set aside.

Combine the streusel ingredients in a small bowl and mix until well incorporated and clumped. Refrigerated until read to use.

For the Cake:

Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl until aerated and lumps are broken up; set aside.

Put the brown sugar and butter in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and beat over medium speed until light in color and airy. Add the yogurt (or sour cream) and mix well. Add the eggs and vanilla and mix until evenly combined. Remove the bowl from the mixture and stir in the flour mixture until just moistened through.  Gently fold in the blueberries.

Transfer the batter to the prepared pan and spread evenly. Sprinkle the streusel over the top and press in to adhere. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean and just a few crumbs remain, about 55 minutes.

Adapted from Shutterbean

Chocolate Loaf Cake

I really enjoy baking things in loaf form.  A loaf is compact, sliceable, unpretentious.  It can be given free of any dish or serving platter and does not need anything more than two hands to consume it.  Almost any delicious batter can be put in a loaf pan and baked off.  A humble presentation that can still be full of divine flavor...    It's the perfect package.   

I made this chocolate loaf recipe for the first time this past weekend to give to a dear friend for her birthday.  The preparation of the batter is simple and the end result is a moist, chocolatey bread (...cake) that is fantastically pleasing.  There are no bells and whistles, no frostings or decoration.  You can slice away and enjoy it with a cup of tea, or dress it up with whipped cream or ice cream and take it to the elegant level that it can still stand up to.

It's like that perfect dress (or, I guess suit or shirt if you're a guy?) that you can dress up or down, and that always seems appropriate for any occasion that comes your way.  But in this case you can eat it instead of wear it.  Your taste buds will like that part.  And so will your friends.

Happy Simple Baking!

Chocolate Loaf Cake

from one of my favorites; Smitten Kitchen

An important note from SK: Although I was thrilled with the result when I used Dutch cocoa and 1 teaspoon baking soda (in the original published recipe, 8/4/10), the cake rose and sank slightly in the baking process, a sign that the leavener was off. I retested this the next day with different levels of leavener and two different types of cocoa, in hopes to keep the cake aloft. I’ve updated the recipe below with the suggestion of Dutch cocoa, a reduced amount baking soda and the addition of baking powder. I found that the version with Dutch cocoa was darker with a more appealing chocolate flavor. But fear not: If you only have a natural or non-Dutched cocoa, you can still use it, but you’ll want to use 1/2 teaspoon baking soda and no baking powder. Here’s a photo of both versions side-by-side. Both were gleefully received.


Ingredients

1/2 cup (1 stick or 4 ounces) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup (6 7/8 ounces) firmly packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup (4 ounces) granulated sugar
1 large egg, at room temperature
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups (6 3/4 ounces) all-purpose flour
3/4 cup (2 5/8 ounces) Dutch cocoa powder (see above for a natural cocoa adjustment)
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Method

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Butter and lightly flour a 9×5x3-inch loaf pan, or spray it with a butter-flour spray. In a large bowl, on the medium speed of an electric mixer, cream the butter until smooth. Add the sugars and beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the egg and beat well, then the buttermilk and vanilla. Don’t worry if the batter looks a little uneven. Sift the flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt together right into your wet ingredients. Stir together with a spoon until well-blended but do not overmix. Scrape down the batter in the bowl, making sure the ingredients are well blended.

Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan. Bake for 60 to 70 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean. Cool in pan on a rack for about 10 to 15 minutes, at which point you can cool it the rest of the way out of the pan. Serve with whipped cream and fresh berries, if you’re feeling fancy.

Gingerbread Apple Upside-Down Cake

I am in love with what happens to apples when they're baked.  In it's natural state, an apple is firm, true to it's shape, solid and crisp throughout.  Once baked, however, this persona slowly surrenders to a more mellow and tender self.  It gives away easily under your bite, soft and sweet, instead of fighting back with a crisp crunch.  Its sugars condense and an intense apple flavor remains, that is eager to pair with warm fall flavors like cinnamon, ginger, and molasses.

Still in the spirit of fall, I wanted to use my orchard-picked apples in a different way than in a crisp or in the muffins that I had just written about.  I wanted something more festive, more complex in flavor.  Gingerbread has always been a favorite of mine because of these reasons, and to pair it with baked-in apples made it a dish that I could not pass by.  

It's an easy cake.  It bodes a festive look, yes, but that only equates to its greatness of the flavor, not the level of difficulty to make it.  And, with all gingerbreads, especially this one, whipped cream (homemade, please!) is an absolute must.  It's practically begging to be on your Holiday Table, so go make one and share it with your loved ones who deserve it most.  

Happy Festive Fall!

Gingerbread Apple Upside-Down Cake
Adapted from Karen Bates at the Philo Apple Farm via the New York Times
Also on smittenkitchen.com

Serves 12

Topping
4 tablespoons butter, plus extra for greasing pan
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
Pinch of salt
4 apples (about 1 3/4 pounds), peeled, cored and cut into 1/4-inch wedges

Batter
1/2 cup (1 stick or 4 ounces) butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg
1/3 cup dark molasses
1/3 cup honey
1 cup buttermilk
2 1/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Very softly whipped cream

Make the topping: Preheat the oven to 325°F. Grease a 10-inch cake pan. Melt butter in a small saucepan. Add brown sugar and simmer over moderate heat, stirring, four minutes, then swirl in salt. Remove from heat and pour into the bottom of your cake pan. Make circles of overlapping apple slices on top of the caramel. Chop any remaining slices and place them in the gaps.

Make the batter: Using a mixer, blend 1/2 cup butter and the sugar on medium-low speed. Increase the speed to high and cream until light and fluffy.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the egg, molasses, honey and buttermilk. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, ginger and cinnamon. Alternate mixing the flour and molasses mixtures into the butter mixture, adding the next once the last has been incorporated.

Pour the batter into the pan. Bake at least 45 to 50 minutes (thanks to commenter klp for reminding me this took a bit longer) or until a wooden tester inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Let cool on a rack for 10 to 15 minutes, then turn out onto a platter (one that will catch spills, unlike what you see in the pictures above).

Serve warm or cool with very softly whipped cream.