What You Should Have Eaten #50

Ham and Swiss Crepes with Chopped Salad

As all good conversations tend to do, talk between me and a buddy ended up turning to beer and bacon the other day. He wondered if anybody had brewed a chocolate bacon stout. I Googled it, and this was the second link that popped up. Challenge accepted! Oh, and in case you’re wondering, this brewery has made a stout with chocolate and bacon. I must try it.

I used two bottle of Left Hand Milk Stout for the recipe. It’s what I had in my fridge. That’s why I went with tiny marshmallows instead of the big ones: availability.

 My biggest recommendation for you if you’re going to bake one of these is to make sure you’re got a big mixing bowl; this is a lot of batter. I ended up making the bunt cake and 12 cupcakes with enough batter left over for probably at least six more cupcakes.

After a little Mario Kart and Pokemon with my son, it was time to get started on dinner. Dinner, of course, also means a cocktail. Tonight it was a New Yorker Apple. Calvados (well, Applejack) and red vermouth. It was sweet, but not sugary sweet. I don’t really like mixing with vermouth all that much because of the…offness…of it. Like I said, sweet but not sugary, and it cuts out the bit of any stronger liquor it’s mixed with.

I forgot to take a picture of the recipe. Here’s a link to another blog that’s got it.

I went with one container of red cherry tomatoes instead of two containers, one each of red and yellow, because a) I couldn’t find any yellow and b) they were damned expensive. I also went with a regular cucumber instead of a seedless one. I’ve never had a problem with the seeds in cucumbers, and neither have my kids.

Whenever I splurge on sliced ham from the deli instead of the pre-packaged stuff, I always go with Boar’s Head Maple Glazed Honey Coat Ham. It’s the best lunchmeat I’ve ever had.

I did not enjoy making the crepes. I’m thinking that I used to much batter as I tried to make each one. They were impossible to successfully flip and keep together.

The entire meal was…decent. Good, but I probably wouldn’t take the time to make any of it again. The salad wasn’t what I usually go for. I like leafier lettuces. I agree with the blog I linked to. This would have been much better with spinach instead of watercress, and I’d probably leave the parsley out altogether.

The crepes were good, but they weren’t what I was expecting. I told my kids they would be like thin pancakes, but instead they were like thick omelets. I would have enjoyed them more had they been fully one thing or the other, either pancakes or omelets.

The cake/cupcakes took some getting used to, but in the end I really enjoyed it. The bacon taste is pretty subtle, but you really have to be prepared for it when you’re eating the cake and all of the sudden you bite into a chunk of bacon. Once you get past that shock, though, prepare to enjoy yourself. I didn’t put any of the icing on cupcakes, instead using it all for the cake (which was unusually heavy, something I wasn’t prepared for). I took the cupcakes to work, and they seemed to be a big hit. My kids also really liked it.

Also, in case you've forgotten: When I can remember to add this to the bottom of my posts, I’m going to whore myself out with an impassioned plea: click on the ads. PLEASE click on the ads. I don’t care if you exit out of it immediately or actually look around. This isn’t some professional blog where I believe in the products I’m shilling. These are automatic ads placed by Google. But when you click ads, I get a little bit of money, and as a single father of three, every penny from every source helps...especially with Christmas bills looming on the horizon. So I’m going to keep this tiny bit of begging at the bottom of my posts, and I hope you’ll take an extra 10 seconds after reading my blog to click on an ad. The only thing it costs you is time. :) Thanks so much!

What You Should Have Eaten #18

Chocolate Whiskey and Beer Cupcakes

 

 

From the first time I heard about these a few months ago, I’ve wanted one. At first, my wife said she would make a batch. That didn’t happen. Then my sister said she’d make them if I bought the alcohol. I never got around to buying her the alcohol, the ended up forgetting she said she’d make them. So when I started my adventures in baking a couple of weeks ago, I vowed that I’d do these. I knew I was taking on something major, but I figured I’d be up to it.

 

 

The recipe was taken from the Smitten Kitchen blog, which I’ll probably end up getting a lot more recipes from. Click here to be taken to the recipe.

 

 

For the stout, I decided to go with Samuel Smith Oatmeal Stout rather than Guinness. I like it better, and I already had some on hand. I got a bottle of Jameson Irish Whiskey, ‘cause it was pretty inexpensive. I also went with Ryan’s Irish Cream instead of Bailey’s, also for economic reasons.

 

I couldn’t find ANY cookie cutters at my local Kroger Market Place, let alone a 1-inch round one. I attempted to use the wide end of a baster for a few, but it didn’t go deep enough before hitting the lip and smooshing the cupcake. I used a knife after that, but it wasn’t pretty.

While lengthy (the whole shebang took about  2 ½ hours from start to finish), this was not a difficult project. My biggest problem was finding enough big bowls in which to mix stuff. It was extremely messy, though. Or maybe that was just me. I had powdered sugar and flour all over the place. The cord to the mixer ended up spilling a bit of the cream onto the counter, and my phone sat in it for who knows how long (didn’t bother it, though). I’m pretty messy with most things I cook, though, so it’s not like I’ve never had a massive clean-up following a cooking session.

Seventeen minutes wasn’t quite enough for the cupcakes, but I may have put too much batter in the cups. I ended up having to leave them in the oven for closer to 25 minutes.

If I continue to do stuff like this, I might invest in a piping bag for icing. These bad boys are not pretty, but damn it if they weren’t delicious. I realized, though, that I made all these cupcakes and a houseful of kids who couldn’t eat them because of the alcohol (it only bakes out of the cupcake, not the filling or the icing). So I’m treating some of my coworkers, but not all because I don’t have enough. So shhhhhhh.