Pork Chops & Chicken

Bourbon Pecan Chocolate Cupcakes With Bourbon Hot Fudge Frosting

I love chocolate, I love Bourbon, and I love cupcakes. Why not combine all three? This is what happens when I have cravings at midnight and I have to do something about it right away.

This won't be another one of my tl;dr (too long, didn't read) posts. Just a simple recipe with a few a additions and viola, Bourbon Pecan Chocolate Cupcakes.

First thing you need to to know is that this is the very best chocolate cake recipe of all time. I don't mean fancy fuck-all cakes that have no flour, added coffee, or blah, blah, blah added to them. This is for straight up chocolate cake. Now, I did tweak the recipe for the cupcakes, but you need to know that this recipe is makes simply the best chocolate cake in the world. Super moist, and super chocolate-y.

Hershey's "Perfectly Chocolate" Chocolate Cake

2 cups sugar
1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
3/4 cup Hershey's cocoa
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup of milk
1/2 vegetable oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
*1 cup boiling water

1. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour two 9-inch round baking pans.

2. Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour batter into prepared pans.

3. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely. Frost with "PERFECTLY CHOCOLATE" CHOCOLATE FROSTING. 10 to 12 servings.

VARIATIONS:
ONE-PAN CAKE: Grease and flour 13x9x2-inch baking pan. Heat oven to 350° F. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake 35 to 40 minutes. Cool completely. Frost.

THREE LAYER CAKE: Grease and flour three 8-inch round baking pans. Heat oven to 350°F. Pour batter into prepared pans. Bake 30 to 35 minutes. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely. Frost.

BUNDT CAKE: Grease and flour 12-cup Bundt pan. Heat oven to 350°F. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake 50 to 55 minutes. Cool 15 minutes; remove from pan to wire rack. Cool completely. Frost.

CUPCAKES: Line muffin cups (2-1/2 inches in diameter) with paper bake cups. Heat oven to 350°F. Fill cups 2/3 full with batter. Bake 22 to 25 minutes. Cool completely. Frost. About 30 cupcakes.

What a Hershey's recipe? Yes! Hershey's unsweetened cocoa is actually world class. Only snobs will shun it because it's from Hershey's. Eff them! You don't have to use Hershey's if you don't want to, but certainly follow this recipe. I used Droste because it was on sale when I bought it. You know how expensive Whole Foods is and when they put stuff on sale, it's a jump at moment.

What I did to change the recipe was, I added one cup of chopped pecans to the cake batter. I found that after they were baked they tasted amazing, but next time I will probably roll the frosted cupcakes in chopped pecans instead. It's up to you. Either way its still delicious.

Instead of boiling water, I heated 1 cup +2 tbls Buffalo Trace Bourbon. Add one cup to a sauce pan and heat. Add the 2 tbls of bourbon to the batter itself. Do Not let it boil. Just heat it up to the point before it boils and add it to the batter.

Bake as recipe calls for.

 

For the frosting I just tweaked another classic recipe I found for a chocolate butter cream that calls for hot fudge.

Chocolate Fudge Buttercream Frosting

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/4 cup shortening
• 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 cups confectioners' sugar
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 1 cup hot fudge topping
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

 

Directions

1. Cream together the butter or margarine with the shortening.
2. Sift the cocoa with the confectioners' sugar and add to the creamed mixture. Mix together adding 1 tablespoon at a time of milk to keep mixture smooth. Don't add more than 1/4 cup of milk.
3. Add the hot fudge topping and the vanilla extract. Blend until smooth and creamy.

I simply subbed the milk for the Buffalo Trace Bourbon. I added little bits more at a time if the frosting was too thick.

And there you have it. Super moist, very decadent, bourbon-y, deliciousness in the guise of a simple cupcake.

Sausage Gravy and Cheese Biscuits

Just a quick post about breakfast I made for dinner with some modified buttermilk cheese biscuits with sausage gravy, and fried eggs.

The biscuits were modified by using lemon juice in milk and letting it sit for a bit to compensate for not actually having buttermilk. And with the addition of a cup and half of shredded cheddar cheese.

The recipe for my sausage gravy and the recipe for the biscuits can be found here. Sausage Gravy and Buttermilk Biscuits

Pickled Beets

[Image taken only one day after pickling.]

I was at the grocery store a few weeks ago buying ingredients to make the Founders Breakfast Stout Beef Stew when I panicked and bought a few bushels of beets. I had no idea what I was going to do with them, but I knew I needed to have them.

After asking around about what I should do with them, I decided the best thing to do was to pickle them. I found a fairly easy recipe from Alton Brown and adapted it.

Pickled Beets by Alton Brown

Roasted Beets:

6 medium beets, cleaned with 1 inch stem remaining
2 large shallots peeled
2 sprigs of rosemary
2 tbls olive oil

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

In a large bowl toss all of the ingredients. 

Place into a foil pouch and roast in the oven for 40 minutes.

*Roasting times will vary. Most people who have used this recipe found that they needed more than hour to roast the beets. I personally had to go longer.

Pickling:




Roasted Beets, recipe above
1 large white onion Frenched
1 cup tarragon wine vinegar
1 1/2 teaspoons of kosher salt
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup water




Remove the skin from the Roasted Beets and slice thinly.



Arrange in 1-quart jars alternating layers with the onion.




In a small pot boil the rest of the ingredients and pour over the beets.



Tightly lid the jars and place in the refrigerator for 3 to 7 days before serving.


 

A couple of things I tweaked for this recipe. I used a white onion and not a red onion like the original recipe calls for. I also used red wine vinegar and 2 tbls of chopped tarragon in the boil instead of tarragon wine vinegar and I did not strain it out. I also tossed the left over shallots and rosemary from the roasting in with the onions and beets for pickling. No sense in wasting it. It will add a robust rosemary kick to the beets coupled with the tarragon, but I liked the bold added flavors.

Mascarpone And Fig Jam Cookies

The first time I made these cookies I nearly died when I tasted them. This is a really simple recipe for cookie dough using mascarpone cheese which adds an awesome richness to the cookies. Like sour cream cookies but better.

This recipe comes from ItalianFoodForever.com. There is no permalink for the recipe but you can do a search under cookies and its there for reference.

Mascarpone and Fig Jam Cookies by Deborah Mele

1/2 Cup Or 1 Stick Unsalted Butter, Brought To Room Temperature
1 1/2 Cups Sugar
1 Large Egg
1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1/2 Cup Softened Mascarpone Cheese
2 3/4 Cups All-Purpose Flour
1/2 Teaspoon Baking Powder
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
1 Cup Fig Jam, Or Jam Of Choice

Beat together the butter and sugar until light. Add the egg and vanilla, and mix until smooth.



Add the mascarpone cheese, and beat until smooth.



Sift together the dry ingredients, and fold them into the butter mixture, mixing just until combined.

Wrap the dough in plastic wrap, and refrigerate 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Place sheets of parchment paper, or silicone baking liners on two cookie pans.




On a lightly floured counter or board, roll the dough into 1 1/2 inch balls. Using a blunt round object like the end of a wooden spoon, create an indentation in the center of each cookie.




Place the cookies 2 inches apart, and bake for 12 to 15 minutes, or just as the cookies begin to color.


 



While still warm, use the spoon to redifine the circle, and then carefully spoon a little jam into each cookie.




Let sit at room temperature until the jam is set. Store in an airtight container.

Founders Breakfast Stout Beef Stew

It's fall again and it's beginning to get cold. New England certainly brings the cold. It seems like everyone is ready and has been waiting all summer for fall. The foods, the colors of the leaves changing, the smell of fall and fire places. It's my favorite time of year. I am ready for fall and all it has to offer.

I had a real bad hankering for a rich beef stew. I have never made one before, and like all my cooking adventures, I have to go big. So I made a rich beer stew made with a stout. Founders Breakfast Stout. A chocolate, coffee, oatmeal stout with 60 IBU's, and 8.3% abv. Word to your mothers!

I am roughly following a recipe I found online for my stew. I am going to show you the original recipe but what you see on my post here is the modified version. Anything with an asterisk next to it on the recipe I post has been modified from the original.

The biggest modification to this recipe is the beer. I substituted out the red wine for the beer. The beer I chose is a robust, American/Imperial (double) stout with high IBU's (international bittering units). The complex flavors make for a unique twist on this recipe. The deep cocoa flavors and roasted malts are really amazing for a rich stew. The meat ended up holding on to all of the hoppy bitterness. The vegetables were the sweet contrast to the dish. Also the huge flavor profile on this beer with the vegetables added almost a hint of ginger coming out despite not using any ginger at all. A very good and unique reaction I didn't quite expect.

If you don't want to use something as robust or as bitter as this beer, and believe me it might be too much for some, there are plenty of lighter variations to choose from as well as using porters, brown ales, and Belgian dubbels.

Get a good read of the reviews first to understand why I chose this beer and if this will be the right one for you to use.

Founders Breakfast Stout

Be advised that this is an overnight recipe. You have to marinate your meat overnight.

The Original Recipe

Parker's Beef Stew via Food Network

Founders Breakfast Stout Beef Stew

*2 1/2 pounds of sirloin tips cut into 1 1/2 inch cubes
*2 12oz bottles of Founders Breakfast Stout
*3 to 4 whole cloves of garlic, smashed
*3 to 5 bay leaves
*1/2 tbls onion powder
*1/2 tbls garlic powder
*1 tbls Worcestershire sauce

2 cups all-purpose flour
kosher salt
freshly ground black pepper
olive oil
2 yellow onions, cut in 1 inch cubes
1 pound carrots, peeled and cut diagonally in 1 1/2 inch chunks
1 pound small potatoes halved or quartered
1 tbls minced garlic
2 cups or 1 (14 1/2 oz can) chicken broth or stock
1 large (or two small) branch of fresh rosemary
1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes
2 tbls Worcestershire sauce
1 10oz package of frozen peas

*The original recipe called for chuck stew, but my meat man had very little offerings by way of chuck stew. I told him I was making a stew and he said sirloin steak tips would work well for stews. Do what the original recipe says and use chuck stew, but for this particular recipe it's sirloin tips. It worked just as well.

Place the beef in a bowl with beer, garlic, and bay leaves, garlic and onion powder and worcestershire sauce. Lightly toss the meat around with the marinade. Place in the refrigerator and marinate overnight.

The next day, preheat the oven to 300 degrees F.

Combine the flour, 1 tablespoon salt, and 1 tablespoon pepper.

Lift the beef out of the marinade with a slotted spoon and discard the bay leaves and garlic, saving the marinade.

*Chop carrots, potatoes, and onions before your begin to brown your meat.

 

In batches, dredge the cubes of beef in the flour mixture and then shake off the excess. Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large pot and brown half the beef over medium heat for 5 to 7 minutes, turning to brown evenly. 

Place the beef in a large oven-proof Dutch oven and continue to brown the remaining beef, adding oil as necessary. (If the beef is very lean, you'll need more oil.) Place all the beef in the Dutch oven.

Heat another 2 tablespoons of oil to the large pot and add the onions, carrots, mushrooms, and potatoes. Cook for 10 minutes over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Add the garlic and cook for 2 more minutes. Place all the vegetables in the Dutch oven over the beef.

 

Add 2 1/2 cups of the reserved marinade to the empty pot and cook over high heat to deglaze the bottom of the pan, scraping up all the brown bits with a wooden spoon.

Add the chicken stock, rosemary, sun-dried tomatoes, Worcestershire sauce, 1 tablespoon salt, and 2 teaspoons pepper.

 

Pour the sauce over the meat and vegetables in the Dutch oven and bring to a simmer over medium heat on top of the stove. Cover the pot and place it in the oven to bake it for about 2 hours, until the meat and vegetables are all tender, stirring once during cooking.

If the stew is boiling rather than simmering, lower the heat to 250 or 275 degrees F.

 

Before serving, stir in the frozen peas, season to taste, and serve hot.

  

Serve with warm brown bread and butter.

A couple of things to take notice of. I did not use a proper dutch over for this recipe as you can see in the pictures. I have one, a gorgeous La Creuset. But sadly I only have one and it simply wasn't big enough for this recipe. I used a 9x13 pan because I did not have anything else big enough. And I merely covered it in foil. Still cooked it at 2 1/2 hours. I had a little bit of marinade left over before baking it off. Instead of stiring it up because the pan was so full, I cooked it for an hour and let some of the marinade reduce a bit and then added the remaining marinade to coat the top of the stew. I then transferred the stew to big serving dish where I added the peas.

The flavors from this stew are very big, bold and complex. The beer has oats, chocolate, and coffee in it. The meat retains a lot of the beer's bitterness which I found to be wonderful. Also the bloody iron taste and chocolate flavors from the meat are to die for. 

The sun-dried tomatoes were a nice touch to this dish. The carrots, peas, onions, and sun-dried tomatoes added the perfect balance of sweetness to this dish. The original recipe does call for mushroom, but I went ahead and skipped that step. You can easily add celery to this dish as well to make it a bit more classic.

The marinade had a bit of a boozy smell, but with the fresh garlic permeating the entire fridge, that boozy smell comes and goes. You will get big wafts of garlic, chocolate, coffee, and sometimes alcohol. Same aromas once cooked, but much deeper and richer.

And as always, the longer the stew sits, the better it gets. Leftovers will be divine and some of the initial bitterness will tone down a bit. But not too much.

Make sure you serve yourself a pint of the Breakfast Stout to go along with it. 

One small disclaimer, a few of my pictures came out blurred. Sometimes I can't tell with my digital camera until I have uploaded them. Forgive my shoddy photography.

Creamy Coconut And Marcona Almond Ice Cream

The desire to make an awesome, creamy, coconut ice cream stems from the very first batch of ice cream I made and screwed up. It all started with getting a brand new ice cream maker for Christmas last year. I also had a can of coconut milk I needed to get rid of. So naturally I thought okay coconut ice cream.

So I found a good looking knock off recipe from Ben and Jerry's using their sweet cream base and adding coconut cream to the base. Yep coconut CREAM which I totally dismissed and thought cool my coconut milk will work and I had sweet shredded coconut to mix in it.

Low and behold there was too much water and I ended up with a sort of sweet coconut sorbet instead. Tasted great, but too much water content.

I have been determined to make this again and redeem myself. I finally have. This batch came out the creamiest, and fluffiest ice cream I have made to date.

Ben And Jerry's Coconut Ice Cream

Sweet Cream Base I

2 large eggs
3/4 cup sugar
2 cups heavy or whipping cream
1 cup milk
1 can (15 ounces) coconut cream, such as Coco Lopez

3/4 to one cup sweetened flaked coconut

3/4 to 1 cup large chopped Marcona almonds

 

The first thing I did was soak 3/4 cup flaked coconut I intended to blend into the ice cream in the coconut cream. I sent my husband out for the ingredients and he came home with unsweetened coconut. No biggie. I just let it soak for about 10 minutes before mixing. If you use sweetened coconut, skip this step and add the coconut with the almonds at the end.

Whisk the eggs in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy, 1 to 2 minutes.




Whisk in the sugar, a little at a time, then continue whisking until completely blended, about 1 minute more.




Pour in the cream and milk and whisk to blend. Add the coconut cream and blend.




Transfer the mixture to an ice cream maker and freeze following the manufacturer's instructions.

I added 3/4 cup to roughly one cup of chopped Marcona almonds after the churn. This is so much liquid from the base that if I added anything else, it would have spilled over the sides. So blend well then transfer to container and freeze for a few hours until firm.

Makes generous 1 quart.

Variations:

Coconut Almond-Add 3/4 cup roasted whole almonds (salted or unsalted) after the ice cream stiffens (about 2 minutes before its done), then continue freezing until the ice cream is ready.

Coconut Chip- Add 3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips after the ice cream stiffens (about 2 minutes before its done), then continue freezing until the ice cream is ready.

Coconut Rum-Whisk 2 tablespoons rum, preferably dark, into the cream mixture before transferring it to the ice cream maker. Complete the recipe as directed.

Roasted Chicken with Fingerling Potatoes and Buttery Brussels Sprouts

Roasting a chicken is probably the easiest thing to do culinary wise. But since this was my first time roasting a chicken, I thought it was important to highlight it. A first is still a first after all.



Ingredients:

4 pound whole chicken
2 lemons
3 tbls Chopped Garlic
1 tbls Onion Powder
1 tbls Garlic Powder
Fresh Thyme
Fresh Sage
Fresh Rosemary
Salt
Pepper
Olive Oil

Lemon Zest

1 to 2 pounds fingerling potatoes

Preheat oven to 375°. Remove gizzards from chicken and rinse the chicken in cold water. Trim any excess fat or skin.


Pat dry the chicken completely including inside cavity.



Loosen the skin carefully from the breast in preparation for spice rub.

 

Place chicken in 9x13 pan. Sprinkle chicken with salt . Take one lemon and cut it in half and squeeze the juice liberally all over the chicken. Sprinkle with pepper. The lightly coat the chicken with a quick drizzle of olive oil.

*You may leave halved lemons in the pan while roasting. I started to do that as some of the pictures indicate, but once I added the fingerling potatoes, I didn't have any room for them.

Mix chopped garlic, garlic powder, and onion powder in a bowl. Coat the top of the chicken, the insides of the chicken cavity, and inside the skin.

Stuff the inside of the chicken with a small handful of fresh thyme, rosemary, and sage. Take second lemon and zest the rind over the top of the chicken.

For the potatoes:

1 to 2 pounds of washed and sliced in half fingerling potatoes. Boil in salted water for a few minutes. Drain the water and toss in chopped garlic. Shake rigorously in pan with cover on top.

Add potatoes to the roasting pan. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder. Lightly sprinkle with olive oil and lemon juice from the second lemon you used for the zest. 

Stick the pan in the oven and roast the chicken for 30 minutes per pound. since my chicken was a little over 4 pounds, I roasted it for 2 hours. at the half way mark I rotated the pan from it's original position in the oven.

Once it is done roasting, use a thermometer to check the chicken and make sure it is at least 175 degrees. Check at a deep set bone to be sure. Then cover with foil for 15 minutes to prevent the moisture of the chicken leaving and drying out the breast. Once the juices are sealed, remove from pan for carving. Remove potatoes to serving dish.

Brussels Sprouts:

1 to 2 pounds of washed and stemmed sprouts.

1/2 stick of butter

1 tbls chopped garlic

1 tbls seasoned salt

Wash brussels sprouts and peel off any bad top layers of leaves. Cut the base stems off. Place sprouts in a pot of water with at 1 to 2 inches of water. Add, butter, garlic, and seasoned salt. Cook for 10 minutes until sprouts are al dente.

Carve chicken and plate. Serve with potatoes and brussels sprouts and potatoes.

 

I have to pat myself on the back for this one. Again while it may be super easy to roast a chicken, the breast meat came out perfectly juicy. I normally do not like white meat or breast meat on chicken or turkeys when roasted due to it always being dried out. I always prefer dark meat for the flavor and juiciness. This time I didn't have to worry about anything. The meat on the breast was nicely flavored and perfectly juicy.

Southern Dirty Shrimp In Beer Sauce With Corn Bread

My first time cooking with shrimp and it was a massive success. This is a southern recipe. Deep down dirty south. Even though this is my own recipe, I kept it true to form until the end. I made a few slight modifications that in my opinion helped rock this dish. I added BBQ sauce and flour to thicken and add even more flavor to my sauce. "Dirty" can be a way to describe southern and creole food, a way to describe the south in general, and in this case it has a double meaning of dirty south and dirty hands. You have to peel the shrimp and getting glorious beer sauce all over your hands that must be licked off not wiped off with a napkin.

The reason this recipe came to be was excess skillet corn bread I made with Sticky BBQ Chicken. So to get rid of it, I decided Dirty shrimp would be the way to go. A long gone BBQ joint in Boston called the Linwood Grill was my inspiration for this recipe. They Made a PBR dirty shrimp bowl that was out of this world.

Also, the call to use Pabst Blue Ribbon proves yet again that there is a time and a place for every beer. I am sure many beer geeks will dispute that, but I haven't got time for their beer snobbery. Not when I made this awesome recipe.

Recipe for Knock Off House Of Blues Skillet Corn Bread. Make this recipe in advance as it takes a while to bake.



Dirty BBQ Shrimp

Ingredients:

2 # Shrimp uncooked (Peeled optional)
1 cup butter
1 white onion chopped
1 tbls. chopped garlic
splash of lemon juice
4 tsp. thyme
4 tsp. oregano
3 bay leaves
3 tsp Oldbay seasoning
2 tsp. cayenne pepper
2 tsp. paprika
2 tsp. onion powder
2 tsp. garlic powder
3 sprigs fresh rosemary
1 tbls. worcestershire sauce
16 oz or 2 cups Pabst Blue Ribbon (1 Tall Boy)
2/3 cup sweet and tangy BBQ sauce
1/2 cup flour or 2 to 4 tbls. cornstarch



In a separate bowl combine all dry spices.

 

In a large pot melt the butter and add the onions and garlic. Cook for a few minutes until onions become translucent. Add a splash of lemon juice and the worcestershire sauce to the onions while the onions are cooking.




 

Add the shrimp, spices and beer to the pot and simmer. By not peeling the shrimp, the beer gets trapped with the meat and holds on to the flavor better.



Let the shrimp simmer in the spices and beer until the shrimp becomes a little firm and pink. Once the shrimp is fully cooked, add BBQ sauce and flour and allow sauce to thicken a little bit. Remove bay leaves and rosemary stems.

 

In a flat bowl, place cornbread in the center and smother with shrimp and sauce. Serve hot and with lots of napkins. Don't be afraid to get your hands in it and peel the shrimp and lick the sauce off!

Cherry Chocolate Ice Cream

(For the record, I tried to take a picture of this ice cream on three separate occasions with two different batches. They all came out blurry. Picture Fail.)

I found this recipe while surfing FoodGawker. It's a wonderfully delicious ice cream recipe from the blog Our Best Bites. It turned out really well and was absolutely fantastic.

Cherry Chocolate Ice Cream

Ingredients


2 C cherries, pitted and halved or quartered (about 40-50 cherries)
1 4.5 oz dark chocolate bar (about 1 C shavings, but can't go wrong with more)
1 1/2 c. 2% milk
1 c. sugar
2 egg yolks
1 c. heavy cream
1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract (I used 1 full tsp.)
1/2 tsp. pure almond extract (I used 1 full tsp.)

Combine milk and sugar in a medium saucepan. Heat over medium until bubbles form around the edges. Remove from heat.

In a small mixing bowl, whisk eggs thoroughly. Very slowly, add 1/2 of the hot milk mixture, whisking the eggs constantly. Return pan with remaining milk mixture to stove top and then whisk the egg and milk mixture back into the saucepan, whisking constantly. You need to be careful here to not get the eggs too hot too fast, or else they'll curdle.

Add whipping cream. Over medium-low heat and stirring constantly, continue heating the custard mixture to 160 degrees. It will start to thicken quickly.

A good trick to test the custard mixture is to dip a spoon in and run your finger down the back of it. When your finger leaves a track, it's ready.

Once ready, remove from heat and add chopped cherries immediately. Add vanilla and almond as well. Let the custard cool (you can use an ice bath if you want to speed that process up) and then place in the fridge to chill for several hours.

Once the custard is cooled and chilled pop it in your ice cream maker and churn according to manufacturers directions.

 

While ice cream is churning, grate the chocolate. Add the chocolate shavings into the ice cream when there's just a few minutes left. If you wait too long and it's already to thick to really mix it well, just stir them in by hand as you transfer your ice cream into another container. Chill in the freezer for a few hours and then devour.

*Side Note: I started to shave the chocolate and it was tedious and too thin. So I grabbed a small knife with a serrated edge and chopped and shaved it at the same time. It made for shavings and actual chunks which was much better in the ice cream.

My three different attempts to take pictures of this ice cream all of which came out blurry.

 

Update: I have made this twice now and have been actually craving it nearly everyday since I first made it. Damn you Cherry Chocolate Ice Cream! DAMN YOU!!

Mississippi Mud Cake With Bourbon Espresso Glaze

(This is an older picture of the cake. Smoother bundt pan.)

I live for this cake and crave it on a regular basis. I make the best regular chocolate cake. Simple, no guffs about it super moist chocolate cake and chocolate frosting. But every once in a while I need a kick to the cake. I found this recipe ages ago. I don't even remember what I was looking for at the time I think it had to do with bourbon. It doesn't even matter now.

This recipe calls for bourbon two times. In the cake and in the glaze. I am all about it.

Mississippi Mud Cake With Bourbon Espresso Glaze
Via Bon Appétit, July 1999




Ingredients:

Cake

2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup unsalted butter, cut in to pieces
6 oz unsweetened chocolate or bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
1/2 cup brewed espresso, or very strong coffee
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup bourbon (Buffalo Trace)
4 large eggs
2 tsp. vanilla extract

Glaze

6 tbls. unsalted butter, cut into pieces
6 tbls. packed brown sugar
2 tsp. instant espresso powder
6 tbls. whipping cream
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
2 tbls. Bourbon (Buffalo Trace)

Make cake:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter 12-cup Bundt pan. 

*Use a rounded bundt pan over the novelty pans. I used a novelty in this example of making the cake because it's all I had on hand, but I find that the smoother pan is better.

 

Mix flour, baking soda and salt in medium bowl.

Combine butter, chocolate and brewed espresso in heavy medium saucepan. Stir over low heat until chocolate and butter melt (mixture may look curdled). Remove from heat. Add sugar and bourbon. Whisk until sugar dissolves and mixture is smooth.

Using electric mixer, beat eggs and vanilla in large bowl until blended. Gradually beat in chocolate mixture. Add flour mixture and stir just until blended.

Transfer batter to pan; smooth top.

  

 

Bake cake until tester inserted near center comes out clean and cake begins to pull away from sides of pan, about 45 minutes. Cool in pan on rack 15 minutes. Invert cake onto rack; cool completely. 

From the older images.

For glaze:

  

Stir butter, golden brown sugar and instant espresso powder in small saucepan over medium heat until butter melts. Stir in cream. Simmer 1 minute. Remove from heat.

* I forgot to snap an image of the bourbon going in the glaze, but it is in there.

Gradually add powdered sugar, whisking until smooth. Mix in bourbon. Cool slightly.

 

Place cake atop rack on baking sheet. Slowly drizzle glaze over cake, allowing glaze to run down sides of cake and cover as much of cake as possible. Spoon any glaze drippings from baking sheet over cake. Let stand 30 minutes. (Can be prepared 2 days ahead. Cover with cake dome. Let stand at room temperature.)

* I do not drizzle the glaze on the cake over a rack. I did that one time and wound up wasting a ton of glaze. I do it right on my cake container and let the glaze drizzle where it may. Once you do that, you get nice little pile ups that you can spread on your cake slice when you cut into the cake. Not the prettiest thing you can do, but tastier.