Wednesday, October 31, 2012

The Horror, The Horror! Heart of Darkness Cake

You can tell I really like Halloween by the fact that I’m posting not one, but two blogs. To be completely honest, I’m not actually doing much else for Halloween this year, because it’s a Wednesday and I have a 9-5 job and a long commute. By the end of the day I look enough like a Zombie that no costume will be required. Baking is the least I could do.

Not everyone is going to be a fan of pumpkin or pumpkin beer or pumpkin flavored everything. Here’s an alternative – cake. It’s got beer in it and is covered in chocolate that also has beer in it. If your don’t like cake either, or chocolate, or beer…I’m sorry, there’s nothing for you here. (No seriously, how did you get here?)

This is one of those occasions that I have what I think is a great idea, but due to my own ineptitude and general apathy it doesn’t turn out to be amazeballs. It was okay, but needs some work. 

I decided to bake a red velvet cake using Murray’s Heart of Darkness Belgian Imperial Stout. I like baking with the higher alcohol, higher flavor type beers as they seem to have a bigger influence on the flavor of the end product. Obviously this cake had to be heart shaped. Usually red velvet cake is covered in delicious cream cheese icing, but this wouldn’t do. This heart needed to be dark, so I decided to find out if I could make a dark chocolate ganache with beer. Turns out you can.

My first hurdle was just finding the heart shaped cake tin, which I’m sure I had seen everywhere until I actually wanted one. I’m sure this wouldn’t be a problem if I was organized, but as usual left it until the day I wanted to bake. It’s okay – I did find one eventually. It was even on sale. Crisis averted with 40% off.

And this also...

[Cake]
1 ¼ cups self raising flour
¾ cup of caster sugar
90g unsalted butter
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg
1 ½ tablespoons of cocoa powder
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon red food colouring
½ cup beer
½  teaspoon white vinegar

[Ganache]
100g dark chocolate (dark as possible - I used 85%)
½ cup of beer
1 tablespoon unsalted butter

...has been one of the dark places of the earth.

[Cake]
Pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees Celcius. Grease and flour your heart shaped pan (or one 22cm round pan).

In one bowl, sift together the flour, salt and cocoa powder.






In a seperate bowl, beat together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla and beat until combined. 


Add the food colouring to the beer. Now add the beer and flour in batches to the butter mixture and beat on low. So, add a little flour and mix, then add a little beer and mix, then flour, then beer...etc..until it is all combined.


Mix together the vinegar and baking soda, then fold the fizzing mixture through the rest of the batter.

Pour into your pan, and place in the oven for 30 mins, or until it passes the skewer test.



Cool on a rack before covering in ganache.


[Ganache]

In a heat-proof bowl, break up your chocolate into small pieces.

Heat the beer in a small saucepan until it is simmering and allow to reduce slightly. Add the butter and stir until melted and combined. 

Pour hot beer/butter mixture over the chocolate and stir until melted and smooth.


Place in the fridge for a while, until it thickens.

Pour over the cake and smooth. 



(Or just eat straight from the bowl.)

I made the cake to par with a Russian Imperial Stout, but it was a little too sweet. It was a bit dry as well. The ganache, however, is delicious. I want to put it on everything.



Boo! Spooky Pumpkin Ale Scones

Happy Halloween!

Now, before I’m hit with a chorus of ‘WHATAREWEAMERICANOW??’, let me say a couple of things on the subject of Halloween…

1. It is not an American holiday. Sure, the US has embraced it more than most, but we all know this is an old pagan festival right? Okay, maybe not in the form it exists now, but it has links to the Celtic harvest festival of Samhain, when the veil between the world of the living and the world of the dead is thinnest and therefore scary shit happens. Or something.

2. I can show you faded old photos from my childhood of carved pumpkins. Sure, they are good old Queensland Blue pumpkins, not the fancy orange ones you can get now. Some of us have been celebrating this day for a while, and the rest of society is just catching up. It’s not my fault if my upbringing was more awesome than yours.

3. Celebrating Halloween slows the onslaught of Christmas. The shelves that currently contain Halloween stuff would be full of Christmas stuff. Yes, I know there is already Christmas stuff…but there would be more of it.

 4. I like spooky, scary, creepy stuff, so of course I like Halloween.

If you really feel the need to have a whinge, at least make it a good reason. For example, Halloween and it’s origins are seasonally inappropriate here in the Southern Hemisphere. It’s an Autumn festival. Really we should all the dancing around the May pole and burning the Wickerman right about now, and the pumpkin worship should take place in May. Of course, that’s if you want to take your pagan beliefs seriously. Me, I just want an excuse to watch scary movies.

Something that is fairly American is Pumpkin Ale. A couple of years ago we good folk down under had probably not heard of, let alone partaken in, beer made of the pumpkin. Or anything made from pumpkin really, certainly not something sweet like pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, pumpkin donuts or pumpkin coffee. Americans seem to put pumpkin in everything at this time of year. Including beer. It’s my understanding that pretty much every brewery in the US will put out a pumpkin beer in the Autumn. It’s also my understanding that what is important in a pumpkin beer is not just pumpkin, but the pumpkin spices that are evocative of the flavours used in the pumpkin pie/bread/cake/donut/coffee etc.

In the same way that Australia seems to be catching on to the concept of celebrating Halloween, it seems that some Australian breweries have caught on to the idea of making a seasonal Pumpkin Ale (even though it’s the wrong season). A couple of years ago I tasted my first pumpkin beer at a Halloween party in a now defunct craft beer bar. It was a one-off brew made just for the party, so only available on draft on the night. Last year I heard that a couple of NSW breweries had made pumpkin beers. This year it seems there are a few more – HopDog, Murray’s, Illawarra, and even one by Gage Roads which you can pick up in Woolworths. There will also be bottles of the Moondog Artisan Poser out in a few weeks. The times they are a changing.

Once I knew I could get my hands on bottled pumpkin beers at long last, I knew I wanted to bake with one. Here’s another random childhood factoid about me – my Mum did make pumpkin pie and it was good. I have no idea if it was like the American version, but I loved the use of pumpkin in a sweet pie. I had planned on trying my hand at Pumpkin Ale Bread, but had a change of heart. Maybe it was that faded old photo of the Queensland Blue jack o’lantern that spoke to me. See, I am from Queensland. Not only that, but I’m old enough to remember Sir Jo Bjelke-Petersen and his wife Flo….famous for her pumpkin scones. Anyone else old enough to remember Jo & Flo will understand that they are pretty Halloween appropriate. It was a dark, scary time for the Sunshine State.


The beer used is the Saranac Pumpkin Ale, which is the one American pumpkin beer that has appeared on the shelves of a large national chain of bottle shops . It goes against my preference for using fresher local brews, but seeing as they are the experts when it comes to Pumpkin ale I figured it was the logical choice.





Gather to ye…

2 cups of self raising flour
(+ extra for kneading)
1 tablespoon of caster sugar
½ teaspoon of mixed spice
60g unsalted butter – cubed and softened
2/3 cup of pumpkin puree (pumpkin, boiled or steamed, then pureed.)
½ cup Pumpkin Ale




As the clock strikes midnight…

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees Celsius.

Sift your dry ingredients together into a bowl. Add the butter and rub it into the flour until it resembles fine crumbs. Make a well and add the beer and the pumpkin puree. Mix into the dry ingredients with a spatula or a knife. 

 
When fairly well combined, tip out onto a very well floured surface. Knead until smooth. I found the mix super sticky, so make sure you have plenty of flour on hand to cover the surface, your hands and anything else the dough may touch. Roll out to about 2cm thick. At this point it’s up to you how to cut them. I favour the traditional round scone shape. If you don’t have a round cutter, you could just use a knife and make squares. Or, you could even shape the dough into a circle and cut into wedges.


 Place on a baking tray with baking paper on it, and put them in the oven for 15 – 20 minutes. They should just be starting to brown on top.


You could probably enjoy these with either a sweet topping, such as honey or golden syrup, or make a herbed butter to compliment the pumpkin. Goes down well with the leftover Pumpkin Ale, or tea, coffee, Bonox…pretty much anything.

 
I found the flavor of these a little too subtle. I was hoping for a little more. More pumpkin, or more spice. Just more. They’re a very nice scone without a doubt – not too heavy or dry – just not what I expected. It probably didn’t help that I didn’t taste the beer before using it. I was fairly conservative with the amount of spice added, as I expected a lot to come from the beer. I may up the spice next time.
 

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Big Arse Brown Ale Banana Peanut Butter Choc Chip Muffins

As per my last post, today I am celebrating Brown Ale Day. What's a celebration without a bit of cake, right?

I do realise that my last recipe using brown ale also used banana, and was essentially a cake, but when I stumbled upon this recipe for Banana and Peanut Butter Muffins I had to try it...with the added bonus of brown ale. What caught my attention with this recipe is that it uses no eggs. I replaced the milk with beer, so if you also leave out the choc-chips, or use a non-dairy version, these are in fact...vegan!

I haven't baked sans eggs before. To be honest, I didn't really know what part eggs played in the baking process, but after some brief research it seems they bind, add moisture and some leavening. Further research into vegan baking seemed to indicate you can compensate for this with banana and some extra baking powder. Beer also has a bit of a leavening effect, so I decided it was worth a try.

The brown of choice for this was the Prickly Moses Tailpipe. Self described as a 'big ass brown', I'm pretty sure these muffins are going to make my arse bigger.




Never a frown...
(Makes about 12 muffins)

1 cup all-purpose flour
2/3 cup wholemeal flour 
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
3 small ripe bananas (or 2 large)
2 heaped teaspoons baking powder 
3/4 cup brown ale 
1/2 cup smooth peanut butter 
3 tablespoons vegetable-based oil (I used a light olive oil)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla 
3/4 cup dark chocolate chips

...with Golden Brown.

Preheat oven to 180C degrees. Grease or line your muffin tin.

In one bowl, mix the flours, baking powder, brown sugar, salt and cinnamon (ie all the dry things). 


In a seperate bowl, mash the bananas, then add the other wet ingredients -  the brown ale, peanut butter, oil, and vanilla - and mix well. 


Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and combine before stirring in the chocolate chips.

Fill the muffin tin cups with mixture, and bake for 15 - 20 minutes until golden brown.


Despite my trepidation about cooking without eggs, the muffins rose perfectly and are light and fluffy (score one to the vegans). They are also delicious. Seriously - I can't stop eating them and can feel my arse already getting bigger. Obviously they can be enjoyed with a brown ale, or any beer at that dark end of the spectrum.

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Celebrate the Sedate – Brown Ale Day



On more than a few occasions I’ve come across the opinion that brown ales are boring. I personally don’t understand why, as I love a trip down to Brown Town. Sure, they’re not choc-a-block full of hops and they are usually of a fairly average ABV. Browns are not so sour that your whole face disappears into itself. They are dark, but not so-black-even-the-white-bits-are-black. They are just….well…brown. However, a good brown ale is a pleasure to drink. Not designed to smack your in the mouth, they are laced with subtle flavours – biscuit, toffee, coffee, chocolate – all working together. No divas – just a harmonious chorus. Sure, maybe a little easy listening M.O.R., but don’t we all need that sometimes?

I guess if you’ve been scaling the heights of beer-geekery, drinking only the most extreme brews that use ALL OF THE HOPS, or boozy barrel aged imperial whatsits, or beers so smoky they’ll set your smoke alarms off, or spending some quality time with our friend Brett, a basic brown ale may seem boring, yes.  You may be suffering from palate fatigue. It’s okay – it happens to the best of us. 

Recently, in the name of health and insanity, the husband and I decided to give up beer (and all forms of fermented beverages) for a month. It had been a long, tough winter that was survived only by the process of pickling ourselves and developing a snug layer of blubbery insulation. While this booze-hiatus was a personal quest of sorts, the upside was an unexpected re-setting of the taste buds. Suddenly beers that had long been left by the wayside for being too…normal…were seen (or tasted) in a whole new light. I mention this because one of the beers the husband had not long after jumping off the wagon was the 2brothers Growler American Brown Ale. This beer is fairly regular on tap at our local, but even for a lover of the brown such as myself, I very rarely choose it. There’s just usually something more…enticing on offer. I was surprised when he ordered it…and more surprised when he exclaimed, ‘WOW – they’ve really upped the choc on this!’. I had been contemplating my own IPA and how crazy hoppy it was. But maybe it wasn't? Maybe we were just tasting the beer’s usual character but with fresh buds. 

Luckily there are plenty of Aussie brewers out there who aren’t listening to any talk of ‘boring browns’ and are producing some deliciously drinkable ales. As well as the afore mentioned 2brothers,  Mornington Peninsula Brewery, Cavalier, Black Heart, Murray’s, Jamieson Brewery, and Brew Boys all produce fantastic brown ales. Also (with impeccable timing) Holgate have just released their seasonal Nut Brown Ale brewed with macadamia nuts in the new 500ml format. Of course, if you are still of the opinion that brown=boring, there are slightly less traditional brown ales out there, such as Prickly’ Moses Tailpipe, a 7.1% ‘Big Ass Brown’, and the 2brothers James Belgian Brown, brewed with lolly bananas. Then there’s Henry Fords Girthsome Fjord from Moon Dog, can beer get more interesting than an 8% Bulgo-American Indian Brown Ale?

Every colour, as long as it's brown.
 
On a food-related note, brown ales are definitely one of the most versatile beers for both cooking and pairing. They lend themselves to both sweet and savoury dishes, and as they are so ‘boring’ and well balanced, they don’t tend to overpower with bitterness or sweetness. They can match well with pretty much any meat – stewed, roasted or barbecued  – but are also great with mushroom dishes or mild vegetarian curries and chillis. They can be used to make a tasty rarebit, or accompany your traditional ploughmen’s lunch. You can bake bread or cake with them. Seriously – browns can do it all. As it happens, my last post here was for Brown Ale Banana Bread.

So, I’ve decided to celebrate the staid awesomeness and very non-boringness of brown ales. IPA’s and Stouts have their own days, so I’m declaring October 21st as my own personal Brown Ale Day - a day to eat, drink and think brown. I’ll be cooking some dishes with brown ale, and drinking my way though a fine selection of Australian browns, because we are a wide-brown land…and if I included browns from other countries I may end up hurting myself.

Call it collective consciousness, kismet or serendipity, but not long after I made this declaration and first put these thoughts down on paper, a very similar post appeared on Craftbeer.com. You can check out some far more articulate thoughts on brown ales by Angelo De Ieso (@BREWPUBLIC for those on the twits) in the article, Brown Ales: The Overlooked Spectrum of Beer

If you happen to be one of those who may have pooh-poohed brown ales in the past (sorry, couldn’t resist), I challenge you to have a brown ale or two, and take your own little trip down to Brown Town.