April 6, 2008 - April 12, 2008

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School bake sale? How about some beer cupcakes?

Filed under: Recipes

I know what you’re thinking: “Beer cupcakes? That’s crazy talk.” At least, that’s what the old man said to me when I told him I was buying Guinness for baking purposes. It isn’t really that crazy though, is it? After all, how many people use Coca Cola when baking ham? Or pour a little red wine into their tomato sauce? So when someone sent me a recipe for Guinness cupcakes, I had to admit I was intrigued.

First step, gathering the usual baking suspects, as well as some key “special guest appearances.” To make these tasty suckers you’re going to need:

A stick and a tablespoon of unsalted butter
A bottle or can of Guinness (though I bet other non-hoppy dark stout beers would work well in a jiffy)
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
2 cups dark brown sugar
3/4 cup sour cream
2 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 cups flour
2 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
8 oz cream cheese
1 1/4 cups confectioners’ sugar
1/3 cup milk (optional)
Muffin tin
Bowls
An oven

Also pictured, but not necessary:
A bottle of tequila
A Netflix movie

So, preheat the oven to 350. In a saucepan melt the butter (cutting the stick into chunks works best).

Add a cup of Guinness or your beer product of choice. Side note: Beer and butter smell pretty strange together, though not entirely unpleasant.

Next, turn off the heat and add the cocoa and brown sugar. You can use a whisk to mix things together. I’m not that fancy, so I just used a fork. Things will start smelling really good at this point; and this is the pan you will probably want to set aside later for the kids (or neighborhood stoner) to lick.

Meanwhile, back at the countertop, whisk (or fork) the sour cream, eggs, and vanilla together. Make sure you mix it until it’s smooth.

Dump the cocoa and beer mixture into the sour cream mix. You might want to lick this bowl too, but try to avoid it because of the raw eggs.

Sift in the flour and baking soda. I don’t have a fancy-schmancy Martha Stewart sifter, so I use a colander. Works pretty well! You’ll want to stir things until there are no clumps.

Pour the batter into the muffin tins and bake for about 25 minutes, or until you can stick a knife in an have things come out clean. Side note: The knife trick only works with baking, not with people.

Now let’s make the frosting. I only have one mixing bowl, so I decided to use a pot. Also, the instructions required a mixer, which I also don’t have. No problem though. Since I have a gas stove, the pot, which had been sitting on stove, had warmed, and when I added my block of cream cheese and busted out my trusty fork, the warmth of the pot made whipping without a robotic arm much easier.

After whipping the cream cheese and confectioner’s sugar together, the instructions stated that I should add some milk. I decided that I should live on the edge a little, so I substituted Guinness for milk. It gave the icing a faint stout flavor, but wasn’t overwhelming. You can also make the icing thinner or thicker by playing with the amount of milk/beer you use. Ice those bad boys up after letting the cupcakes cool for ten minutes or so.

And here’s the final product. The Guinness isn’t really detectable except for the slight flavoring of the icing. So, if you were expecting a really thick pub cake, you might be disappointed. However, if you love super rich, moist cupcakes, then this is the recipe for you.

Posted by Jessica Armbruster at April 11, 2008 2:12 PM | Comments (0)

 

Is bottled water tapped out?

Filed under: Food

Restaurant-goers no longer need to feel like cheapskates when responding to a server's "Sparkling or still?" with an awkward, "How about tap?": The faucet is hip again.

Twin Cities restaurants are joining nationwide efforts to eschew unenvironmental bottled water in lieu of tap through a campaign called Think Outside the Bottle,

which reports that producing bottles for the US bottled water market required the equivalent of more than 17 million barrels of oil last year--that's enough fuel for 1 million US cars for a year. Plastic water bottle production generated more than 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide last year and when bottles aren't recycled, more than 4 billion pounds of PET plastic bottles end up in landfills or as roadside litter.

I'm all for drinking tap water in lieu of wasteful bottled, with one caveat. When I dined at an upscale restaurant in downtown Minneapolis recently, the tap tasted so fishy, probably due to spring run-off that I switched to bottled..and felt like a total ass about it.

Think Outside the Bottle participating restaurants:
Annie's Parlour
Barbette
Birchwood Cafe
Bryant Lake Bowl
Common Roots Cafe
Ecopolitan
Egg & I
Kafe 421
Kitty Cat Klub
Sunny Side Up Cafe
Red Stag Supperclub
Restaurant Alma
Sapor Cafe
The Lexington
Cafe Amore

Posted by Rachel Hutton at April 10, 2008 1:34 PM | Comments (3)

 

Build a Better Cheese Knife...

Filed under: Gadgets

Those who deal with cheese know that slicing the stuff is more challenging than it looks. Good cheese is temperamental. A nice aged parm or cheddar, for example, would rather flake, break or just plain crumble than sheer off in a clean, healthy slice.

Enter: The Cheese Knife. The theory: a plastic knife comprised of little stacked triangles with work better than a lovely Henckels or Wusthof. And, lo and behold... it works.

The cheese doesn't stick to the side of the knife. Instead, it slices through even aged and fussy cheeses as though they were butter. Is it worth the $19.99 (at Kitchen Window)? That depends. If you go through 10 pounds of cheese a year, probably not. 50 a year, most definitely.

Posted by James Norton at April 10, 2008 2:32 AM | Comments (4)

 

An Amazing Moment

Filed under: Food

Those fortunate enough to dine at Amazing Thailand this past Saturday were able to observe a fleeting yet elegant spectacle: The restaurant's general manager performing traditional Thai dance, while appropriately costumed and holding two flowers containing lit candles. Her sudden, smiling appearance at my table was one of the most pleasantly striking moments* I've enjoyed in a lifetime of dining out.

Amazing Thailand (which I reviewed shortly after it opened) has become one of my favorite restaurants. This is not merely because of the food (which ranges from decent to excellent) or the decor (which includes an actual tuk tuk parked in the foyer), but because of its spirit. You can tell that this is a place that is fighting to do well, and winning over an increasingly large and loyal following in the process.

The idea of having someone perform Thai dance to traditional music in the middle of the dinner hour is not everyone's cup of tea, and it has to be somewhat nerve-wracking to perform while onlookers wolf down spring rolls and pad siew. Speaking personally, however: Sometimes taking this kind of a risk can give patrons an intangible but precious gift: a memorable moment of grace.

---

*(Least pleasantly striking moment: dining at Casa de Lara in Madison and watching a waitress drop an enormous platter of glassware onto the tile floor, and then have to pick up the pieces, sobbing quietly, while the entire restaurant gawked. I still sometimes wish I could travel back in time and help her pick up the shards, but then I think: Wouldn't that have just made it even more awkward? Then again: Is it possible for anything to have been more awkward? The whole moment was so riveting and terrible that it was like a ten minute one-act play about the nature of humiliation.)

Posted by James Norton at April 8, 2008 12:57 AM | Comments (2)

 

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