Triple Layer Guiness Cake (Chocolate Stout Cake) with Bailey's Frosting and Whiskey Ganache

Every St. Patrick's Day, I break out a Guinness recipe. Mostly this is because I'm a dark chocolate person, and Guinness, much like coffee, makes good chocolate take on a darker, slightly more bitter and complex taste. Add to that a sense of satisfaction at boozy cakes, and car bomb cake is just a hop, skip, and a jump away. In the past I've made Car Bomb Cupcakes, but this year I went for the full-on cake, decorated to look like the top of an iconic pint glass. I also did not use Guinness this year, but opted instead for Duck Rabbit Milk Stout. The world of fantastic stouts is too great too always use Guinness, especially with the crazy St. Patrick's day mark up.

I have to admit that I had grand plans to take detailed photos of the stacking and icing of the cake, which I immediately forgot in the moment of icing. These pictures are from day three of this cake's life, after it had been hidden under foil overnight, and thus does not do the cake justice. This is a bummer. But trust me, the icing is not so hard as it seems, as you only need to rough ice this cake. You are making both the chocolate ganache and the Bailey's buttercream, but they use different methods. You don't have to cream the butter for the ganache, and the amounts come out perfectly to ice the center layers and sides in the chocolate ganache and use all of the buttercream for the top of the cake. 

This recipe makes three layers in 8" cake pans, or 2 layers in 9" cake pans. If you are like me and get very anxious about evenly weighing your cake pans/ do not have three cake pans so need to make them in waves, I have found that 2 lbs. for each layer should be about right (1 lbs 15 3/4 oz if you are using large instead of extra large eggs) for an 8" cake. Make sure, if you are making the 9" pan, that your cake pan is at least 2" deep. If you only want to use a single can of Guinness (weighing in a 14.9 oz), you can top off the cake with water or cold coffee (as a substitute for the espresso powder). Or you can enjoy the rest of that smooth 2nd Duck Rabbit milk stout during the cooking of the cake.

Chocolate Milk Stout Cake (Guinness Cake)

Ingredients

Stout Cake
2 cups stout or dark beer, such as Guinness
2 cups (4 sticks) unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups Dutch-process cocoa
4 cups All purpose flour
4 cups sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon espresso powder
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
4 extra large eggs
8 oz sour cream


Chocolate Whiskey Ganache
1 pound bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped
2 cups heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 -4 tablespoons whiskey (to taste)
1 teaspoon espresso powder

Bailey's Irish Cream Buttercream Frosting
 3 to 4 cups confections sugar

1 stick (1/2 cup or 4 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperatue 

1/4 cup Baileys - 1 airplane bottle's worth, plus more to taste

Additional milk or cream for blending if necessary.

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. 
2. Cut three round parchment paper circles that fit neatly in the bottom of 3 8" cake pans or 2 9" cake pans.
3. Grease and flour three 8" or two 9" cake pans, and line them with the parchment paper circles.
4. For the cake: Place the stout, espresso powder and butter in a large, heavy saucepan, and heat until the butter melts.
5. Remove the pan from the heat, and add the cocoa powder.
6. Whisk until the mixture is smooth and shiny. Set aside to cool to room temperature.
7. Whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl; set aside.
8. In a large mixing bowl or the bowl of a standing mixer, beat together the eggs, vanilla and sour cream on medium for about a minute.
9. Add the stout-cocoa mixture, mixing to combine.Use a batter guard if you have one.
10. Add the flour mixture a little bit at a time and mix together at slow speed. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl, and mix again for 1 minute. 
11.  Divide the batter equally among the prepared pans. (See above for weighing hints.) Drop the pan a couple times against the top of the counter to even out batter and let any air bubbles escape prior to baking.
12. Bake the layers for 35-38 minutes for 8" pans, or 45 to 50 minutes for 9" pans, until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean. 
13. Remove the cakes from the oven and cool on a rack for 10 minutes before turning the cakes out of their pans and returning to the rack to finish cooling completely before frosting. If you are reusing a cake pan, wait an additional 10 minutes for the empty pan to cool before rinsing and re-greasing. 
14. For the whiskey ganache: Place the chopped chocolate in a large heatproof bowl along with the espresso powder if using.
15. Bring the cream to a simmer in a heavy, medium-sized saucepan, stirring frequently and watching to make sure not to scald the cream.
16. Pour the hot cream over the chocolate and stir until the mixture is completely smooth and melted. The mixture will start out looking almost a little separated before chocolate melts and blends. 
17. Stir in the whiskey and vanilla. Refrigerate until the icing is spreadable, stirring occasionally, about an hour and a half. If you do not stir the edges will get overly stiff and have to be reincorporated during assembly.
18.  For the Bailey's Irish Buttercream: Whip the butter in the bowl of an electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, for several minutes. You want to get it very light and fluffy. Slowly add the powdered sugar, a few tablespoons at a time.
19. When the frosting looks thick enough to spread or thicker, drizzle in the Baileys (or cream if you are doing the non-alcoholic option) and whip it until combined and frosting is correct texture. 
20. If this has made the frosting too thin (it shouldn’t, but just in case) beat in another spoonful or two of powdered sugar. Adjust for taste and desired degree of alcohol.
21. To assemble: If all of your cakes are rather domed, trim one cake layer to have a flat top, if necessary.
22. Place the layer upside down on a serving plate or cake stand. Spread 1/3 of the chocolate whiskey icing over just the top of the layer, starting with a large mound of icing in the middle of the cake, and moving your spreader around in a circular motion to spread icing all the way to the edges of the layer. Don't worry if it spills over the edges of the cake a little, you'll get to fix that later.
23. Top with another cake layer, top side down, and repeat the process. If you baked three layers, add that one also.
24. Use the remaining frosting to cover the sides of the cake. You can gently press the layers closer together if the stacking feels a little iffy, but be very careful to keep the cake straight. To clean up your mess on the edge of the serving plate, using a paper towel dipped in water to carefully remove any chocolate.
25. Top the top layer of the cake with a generous layer of the Bailey's buttercream frosting, making sure that the edge of the Bailey's covers the top of the edge of whiskey ganache. 
26. Store in fridge until ready to serve. Remember that the top layer of buttercream will not stiffen as much as the ganache will.
    

Mocha Ice Box Cake (Cookie Cake)

I saw Barefoot Contessa make this cake on her show, and I thought, okay, this is so over-the-top crazy and rich, it just has to be good. Otherwise, how did it get green-lighted? The answer is that this is both completely unexpected and exactly what you think it is going to be. That is, an almost tiramisu like "cake" where chocolate chip cookies replace the lady fingers. The cookies absorb the whip cream and coffee liqueur while the chips remain for welcome chunks of chocolate. This is a diet killer, but if you're going off the diet, go big.

The recipe hinges on choice of cookie. While I make a pretty mean chewy chocolate chip cookie, its fraternal twin the crispy chocolate chip cookie is not something I've mastered. Plus, since the general ease of making this dish is part of its appeal, do you really want to have to make a whole other dessert just to start this recipe? So, the goal should be to score some crispy, thin (absorbant) cookies from the grocer's bakery or the food aisle if you can find it. I realize this can be a little hard to find (we get Otterbein's Chocolate Chip, which they sell at Giant and Calvert Woodley. Tate's cookies or Anna's Ginger Snaps, etc. are also good options). Ginger snaps are a nice variation from the chocolate chip version.

The mocha whipped cream is a rich and complex cream, and is a sneaky little tool to keep in your whip cream arsenal to drop on anything chocolate and sweet as a finisher. Brownie? Dab a little mocha whip cream on that. The shaved chocolate, which seems like a gratuitous thing, actually is more than garnish and really does add a distinct flavor profile to the cake. It's good without the shavings, but the dish tastes way more complete with them on. Again, the tiramisu comparison invites itself and is appropriate here. Before you know it, this recipe will be in your standards list of a quick and easy way to celebrate a special occasion in a classy yet comforting way.

Mocha Ice Box Cake (Cookie Cake) 2 cups cold heavy cream 12 ounces Italian mascarpone cheese 1/2 cup sugar 1/4 cup coffee liqueur, such as Kahlua 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder, such as Pernigotti 1 teaspoon instant espresso powder 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract 3 (8-ounce) packages chocolate chip cookies, such as Tate's Bake Shop Shaved semisweet chocolate, for garnish Instructions Using either a hand mixer or standing mixer with a whisk attachment, combine the heavy cream, mascarpone, sugar, coffee liqueur, cocoa powder, espresso powder, and vanilla. Mix on low speed to combine and then slowly raise the speed, until it forms firm peaks (when the whisk is lifted out of the cream the cream remains stiff at the end of the attachment). To assemble the cake, arrange chocolate chip cookies flat in an 8-inch springform pan, covering the bottom as much as possible like a puzzle. (I break some cookies to fill in the spaces.) Spread a fifth of the mocha whipped cream evenly over the cookies.  Place another layer of cookies on top, lying flat and touching, followed by another fifth of the cream. Continue layering cookies and cream until there are 5 layers of each and you've hit the top of the spring form pan, ending with a layer of cream. Smooth the top, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate overnight. Run a small sharp knife around the outside of the cake and remove the sides of the pan.  Using a fine grater or rasp, grate thin shaving of chocolate on the top of cake. Cut in wedges, and serve cold.  Cooking Time: 12 hours Inactive, 30 minutes active

Fideos with Clams and Saffron

This is the first recipe TK and I ever made from the Top Chef cookbook, and it still is a regular on our menu when we're looking for something romantic, charming and relatively easy (minus the general annoyance of having to clean clams). The basic premise of very slowly cooking garlic in oil then absorbing it into toasted pasta (almost risotto style) then adding cream and saffron is pretty unbeatable. And the presentation of the just-opened clams is elegant and fun. That being said, we had to make some adjustments to the recipe (more veggies, more clams, less pasta), and work a little bit on the technique of getting a bird's nest of toasted pasta into a dutch oven. As a result, I recommend using the largest dutch oven you have, even if you aren't serving that many. (This dish serves 4 to 6).

One whole teaspoon of saffron is a decadent amount of saffron, and that is the luxury ingredient of this dish. You can lighten that a bit. For instance, if you are using the pre-packaged individual servings of saffron, one capsule will do even though that usually isn't quite a teaspoon. Too much saffron can overwhelm a dish, so don't go wildly overboard, but this is also definitely not a three or four strands and that's it dish. It is the star of this show and deserves to be treated as such.

 

Fideos with Clams and Saffron

Ingredients

3/4 pound fideos or capellini pasta

2 cups heavy cream
1 teaspoon saffron threads, crumbled
Salt
1 1/4 cup small cauliflower florets
1 1/4 cup small broccoli florets
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
10 garlic cloves, peeled and left whole
1/2 cup white wine or seafood stock
1 1/2 pound fresh medium clams, cleaned
Freshly ground black pepper
Chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley for garnish

Instructions Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Break the fideos into 3-inch pieces. Arrange the pieces in an even layer on a rimmed baking sheet. Place in the oven and bake until golden brown, 8 to 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool. This exercise will also provide you with an awesome test of "where is my oven the hottest". Meanwhile, clean the clams thoroughly of any grit. In a medium saucepan, combine the cream, saffron, and salt to taste and place over medium heat. Bring just to a boil, whisking and watching the pot so the cream doesn’t boil over. Remove from the heat, stir in the cauliflower and broccoli, and set aside. Preheat the broiler.  In a large dutch oven, heat the oil and garlic over low heat, stirring, until the garlic begins to soften and turn golden, about 15 minutes. Don't rush it and burn the garlic. Break the garlic up with the back of a wooden spoon. Add the clams, fideos, and then wine. The fideos will make a bit of a mess and may not all fit immediately into the pot. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Close the lid and shake the pot to combine. Increase the heat to medium-high and cover the pan. Cook for about 4 minutes, shaking the pan, until the clams have JUST opened. Discard any unopened clams. Stir in the cauliflower and cream mixture and remove from the heat. Divide the clam and pasta mixture among 4 ovenproof dishes. Place the dishes in the oven and broil until golden brown, 2 to 4 minutes. Garnish with the chopped parsley and serve immediately.