The Doyle's Dont Just Like Beer...

We love chocolate too! Last weekend I made a Porter Chocolate Layer Cake with Chocolate ganache and Buttercream Frosting...yes I said Porter, for Colin's 32nd birthday. The cakes I make are individual size, either for two or one serving each for 4. Perfect really if you don't want an entire cake hanging around the house. With the left over batter I can usually squeeze in a dozen or dozen and a half of cupcakes.

This was the first beer dessert I've made and I was so pleased it came out so well. I think Grandma Doyle would have been pleased as well. The house smelt like if you can envision walking into a pub right off the chocolate river in Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. YUMMY! You wouldn't think beer and chocolate but it actually makes for a light and moist cake. I got the recipe off of smittenkitchen but I made a few changes to what I had in the kitchen. This would be my adaptation. Go ahead and bake on! and let me know what you think!



Porter Chocolate Layer Cake with Chocolate ganache and Butter Cream Frosting

For the Porter Chocolate Cupcakes
1 cup porter, I used Black Butte Porter
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (preferably Dutch-process)
2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
2/3 cup sour cream
Ganache Filling
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate
2/3 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons butter, room temperature
1 to 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Buttercream Frosting
3 cups confections sugar
1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 tablespoons heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Make the cupcakes: Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 24 cupcake cups with liners. Bring 1 cup porter and 1 cup butter to simmer in heavy large saucepan over medium heat. Add cocoa powder and whisk until mixture is smooth. Cool slightly.

Whisk flour, sugar, baking soda, and 3/4 teaspoon salt in large bowl to blend. Using electric mixer, beat eggs and sour cream in another large bowl to blend. Add porter-chocolate mixture to egg mixture and beat just to combine. Add flour mixture and beat briefly on slow speed. Using rubber spatula, fold batter until completely combined. Divide batter among cupcake liners, filling them 2/3 to 3/4 of the way. Bake cake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, rotating them once front to back if your oven bakes unevenly, about 14-17 minutes. You can also divide the batter between cake pans as I did and continue to check the cakes for done'ness after 10 min. Cool cupcakes on a rack completely.
Make the filling: Chop the chocolate and transfer it to a heatproof bowl. Heat the cream until simmering and pour it over the chocolate. Let it sit for one minute and then stir until smooth. (If this has not sufficiently melted the chocolate, you can return it to a double-boiler to gently melt what remains. 20 seconds in the microwave, watching carefully, will also work.) Add the butter and stir until combined.
Fill the cupcakes: Let the ganache cool until thick but still soft enough to be piped (the fridge will speed this along but you must stir it every 10 minutes). Meanwhile, using your 1-inch round cookie cutter or an apple corer or talent with a paring knife, cut the centers out of the cooled cupcakes. Make sure not to cut all the way through the cupcake liner. Put the ganache into a piping bag (or ziplock with the corner cut off) with a wide tip and fill the holes in each cupcake to the top.

Make the frosting: 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. When the frosting is thick to spread drizzle in the cream. To ice and decorate the cupcakes I used an Ateco 809 tip to make the poof of buttercream and topped with chocolate covered blueberries.

Birthday Cake for Breakfast!

My Mom always said No to sweets before dinner with only one exception, the morning after our birthday. If our hearts desired we could devour a slice of birthday cake for breakfast BUT only the morning after our birthday. Cake can be just cake but to be birthday cake is an experience; blowing out the candles, getting cake all over the place and for me as a little girl reaching over to my sisters highchair to eat her cake as she is reaching for mine. Photo to be added shortly.

As an adult all I really want on my birthday is a big ol' cake to share with my friends and family, blowing out tons of candles and being allowed to pick up a huge piece of cake and eating it like pizza, of course in the most graceful way possible. The frosting, the cake all in one bite. No fork just cake and a cold glass of milk.

That's what I was thinking my big sister would like for her 32nd birthday so I made it for her. My bake-girl-friend Amber gave me a recipe for a chocolate raspberry layer cake with chocolate ganache and swore it is the richest cake she's ever made. So, I had too, I did and it was chocolaty perfection! Recipe to be added shortly.

My sister loved the cake and is still savoring it 6 days later. That's really the reason I do this, to show my love and to evoke that child in all of us. We all share memories with food whether it be birthday cake, that warm chocolate chip cookie, grandmas pound cake or apple pie during the holidays. Food Happiness!

Birdie Doyle's Sugar Cookies

My Great Grandma Doyle was known as Birdie - short for Alberta. The things I remember about her the most was her house and our stays there. She had this old clock that hung on the wall in the long hallway that would go off on the hour. I am sure it was a piece that maybe her Grandmother gave her. We would stay with her in the summers and she packed our lunches for our visits to see our Dad during work.

For my sisters and I our favorite sweets that my Grandma would make were her sugar cookies. This cookie was thin but soft and creamy. Its really the small touches that made this cookie so memorable. I loved this lady and her special touches. She wrapped egg salad sandwiches in wax paper and made it so pre-Martha Stewart. The best part was dessert.

So, last week I made them again with the raisin in the center and all and had to share them with my sister and my workmates. I hope they enjoyed them! I sure did!

Tres Dias de Macaroons

I would say out of any cookie I make macaroons the most. They are light and soft on the inside and crisp on the outside. They are about a bite and a half size if you are eating in front of people but when I am alone say lounging on the couch and no one is looking I pop them in one after the other.

I made coconut macaroons for three days last week for two gifts. Why it took three days I am not sure but things happen when you are baking that you cant explain. Monday I started a batch for a baby shower gift. I ended up experimenting with egg whites in the carton and sugar substitute and they didn’t turn out. To the trash they went.

Tuesday evening rolled around and I started again. I've been making these for years and sometimes this happens. I made them too big and the center wasn’t cooked all of the way causing the egg whites and sugar to bubble up and ooze all over the baking sheet. Not pretty. So, I trashed those as well, actually, I put them down the garbage disposal this time which apparently was a big no-no. I clogged the sink causing the dishwasher to back up and our neighbors sink to back up as well. We called the plumber and of course hid the evidence.

By Wednesday I’m feeling pretty pumped up. I got a tablespoon sized ice cream scoop and I was excited to use it. The ice cream scoop is by far my favorite tool in the kitchen that I use mostly for other tasks than intended. 

For the baby shower gift I made the standard vanilla with chocolate drizzle on top. The second batch was for my Dad, a variety of flavors I have been testing and perfecting for about a year. Both batches turned out perfect. I put them in over sized muffin liners and layer them in a small cookie box I got at Paper Source. I then wrap the box in ribbon and put my logo on top. My dad called me yesterday to tell me that the presentation was great and they were delicious...but he doesn’t really like coconut. Funny how things work like that. 

So, remember sometimes third time's a charm and there is no rhyme or reason in the kitchen :) Bake on!

The Short'ning of it

(Photo: Grandpa Robert, Katie, Great Grandma Doyle and Me, 2004)

The short of my inspiration to create my first blog ever would be my great Grandma Doyle and her sugar cookie recipe. As girls, my sisters and I would stay with my father every summer and spend our days with her. She would make us these delicious sugar cookies topped with a single raisin wrapped in wax paper.

This recipe calls for equal parts shortening and butter. Yes, I know shortening is a big no no so, I just use butter. The sad thing is that in 2005 she passed and I felt regret that I didn't know her better, as an adult. I am not much of a story teller nor professional baker but I will be sharing my Grandmother's life through making her specialties and hopefully becoming a great baker as she was. Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoy. ~Sarah