Nigella's Epic Chocolate Guinness Cake

I have been doing so much back to back travelling of late. As much as I loved it, I am so thrilled to be back in my Ohio nest, decorating, cooking, reading, photo-editing, etc. I have become such a homebody over the last few years. I think it comes from having a nice little nest to take care of and a nice Prof. Hubs with whom to do so.

Last week I had the pleasure of reuniting in Chicago with several good friends whom I hadn't seen in YEARS-it was a much needed friendfest and I am now so excited for my upcoming trips to Chicago (in better, warmer weather, hopefully!) to photograph their wedding.

I have several photography projects coming up that I am really excited about. Check out my photosite in the coming weeks (www.AriellePhoto.com) to keep up :)

Then there is the matter of the Chocolate Guinness cake. My friend Ana has been raving about this cake for months. Her recommendation was so glowing that I knew I had to find an occasion to make it. Yesterday that occasion presented itself in the form of an informal dinner. I was asked to bring a dessert. And I did. I brought this cake. AND IT WAS SO DELICIOUS I CANNOT EVEN KEEP FROM SHOUTING (text-shouting.)

I am very pleased to present a cake that has become an instant classic in our house. Not only will I be making it for upcoming birthdays, but I will also use this cream cheese frosting recipe for the rest of my cream cheese frosting making days. SO GOOD! I usually have problems with lumps in my cc frosting, even if I let the cc sit out over night, but this method was perfect and I hadn't even let the cc soften for more than an hour! Wonderful! You don't really taste the guinness in the cake-it just adds a nice depth of flavor, a "ferrousness" as Nigella says. It is the most lovely, moist, dense cake... You'll love it!

Chocolate Guinness Cake

by Nigella Lawson

Total time: about 1 hour

For the cake:
Butter for pan
1 cup Guinness stout
10 tablespoons (1 stick plus 2 tablespoons) unsalted butter
3/8 cup unsweetened cocoa
2 cups superfine sugar
3/4 cup sour cream (I was out so I used 0% greek yogurt instead and it was great!)
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

For the topping:
1 1/4 cups confectioners' sugar (I only used 1 cup-it was perfect)
8 ounces cream cheese at room temperature (I used Neufchâtel instead...better texture)
1/2 cup heavy cream.

1. For the cake: heat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9-inch springform pan and line with parchment paper. In a large saucepan, combine Guinness and butter. Place over medium-low heat until butter melts, then remove from heat. Add cocoa and superfine sugar, and whisk to blend.

2. In a small bowl, combine sour cream, eggs and vanilla; mix well. Add to Guinness mixture. Add flour and baking soda, and whisk again until smooth. Pour into buttered pan, and bake until risen and firm, 45 minutes to one hour. Place pan on a wire rack and cool completely in pan.

3. For the topping: Using a food processor, mix confectioners' sugar to break up lumps. Add cream cheese and blend until smooth. Add heavy cream, and mix until smooth and spreadable.

4. Remove cake from pan and place on a platter or cake stand. Ice top of cake only, so that it resembles a frothy pint of Guinness.

Yield: One 9-inch cake (12 servings).

Poppy seeds+Lemon=Magic

As I write this post, I am literally sitting in the Midwestia airport, enjoying the free wifi, joyfully anticipating my business class seat on this afternoon's flight to NYC. Let me just say, BE NICE to the airport check-in people. They can make all the difference in your travel experience. Take this morning: Prof. Hubs had to teach at noon so even though my flight is not until 2:30 this afternoon, I was dropped off at the airport at 11:oo am. When I checked in I made a few jokes with the check-in lady...who, I suppose, appreciated it. And bumped my ticket. To business class. And made my day :)

Not too shabby... (To Julie at Airtran-thank you for being such a sweetheart-you've completely made the horror of waiting in an airport for 3.5 hours a joy now that I know warm cookies and ample leg room await!)

I had opportunity this past weekend to bake not just one, but 2 prototypes of my new favorite cake: The luscious lemon poppy seed cake. I must say, it's unlike any other lemon poppyseed recipe I could find and I looked in all the usual places. I was thinking to myself,

"I want a lemon poppyseed cake with a tight crumb, a moist texture, not too sweet and a nice lemon-y fragrance... Sort of like my apple cake, but not apple... So what did I do? I played! And I came up with a perfectly wonderful Lemon poppy seed cake. In fact, several of those who ate it said it was the best lemon cake they had ever tasted!!!

With that introduction, I give you:

Desperate Housediva's Luscious Lemon Poppy Seed Cake

1.75 cups sugar

3 C reg flour (I used half white whole wheat, half regular white)
1 tsp salt
4 eggs
1 Tbsp vanilla
2 Tbsp lemon zest (zest 2 lemons)
1 Tb baking powder
1 C canola oil
1/4 C orange juice

Juice from 1/2 lemon (make sure to remove seeds!!!)

1/2 cup poppyseeds (=3 small containers of poppyseeds)

Preheat oven to 350 (in my crazy oven, I had better luck with 325...)
Sift flour, baking powder, salt and sugar in large mixing bowl. Make a well in the center and pour oil, eggs, orange juice, lemon zest, lemon juice, vanilla, and poppy seeds. Combine until well blended.
Grease 10'' tube (bundt) pan. Fill pan with cake batter. Spread the top with a spatula to even.

Bake for about 1 hour or until spaghetti strand comes out clean. Cover top with aluminum foil if it begins to overbrown.

Allow to cool to lukewarm before turning out onto serving plate.
Freezes well.

These are the lemons who sacrificed their zest for the good of the cake:

Here is the zest they yielded:

I like to leave a few scrapes of batter for tasting purposes... strictly business, of course...

Here's a close-up of the last few bites...

Traditions

It's been a week since my last trip to NYC and I'm just now starting to feel normal again. These trips to NY are sooooooo exhausting! I manage to pack in an entire month of work/lessons/socializing into one week which makes the subsequent week back in Midwestia a time of recouperation, i.e. I watch a LOT of daytime tv...

One of the few things that gets me out of my decompression state is baking. It somehow seems more relaxing than regular cooking. All of the scooping, measuring, and stirring are quite therapeutic in their quiet and repetitive ways. Most of my cooking is very instinctual, even the measuring, so to actually acurately measure out a teaspoon of something is a regimented change to the cooking status quo. This past weekend I baked TWO of my Nana's apple cakes-one for some friends and then, because that one turned out nicely, one for us!

There's something about an old family recipe that makes it better than any other-there's the knowledge that it WILL turn out delicious and then that first bite, completely full of memories. This cake is like that for me and I hope it will become a family tradition to those of you who choose to bake it...

Nana's Apple Cake recipe (a traditional Jewish Apple cake)

4 C. peeled and sliced apple
4 Tb + 2 C sugar
3 C reg flour (sometimes I actually use half or all white whole wheat flour)
1 tsp salt (I usually add a teensy bit extra)
4 eggs
1 Tbsp vanilla
4 tsp cinnamon
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 C canola oil
1/4 C orange juice


Preheat oven to 375
combine apples, cinnamon, the 4Tb sugar and set aside. Sift flour, baking powder, salt and the 2 C sugar in large mixing bowl. Make a well in the center and pour oil, eggs, orange juice and vanilla. Beat until well blended.
Grease 10'' tube (fluted) pan ( I like to use that PAM baking spray with flour in it.)

Spoon 1/3 of batter into pan. Make a ring of 1/2 apple mixture (DRAINED OF EXCESS MOISTURE) taking care not to have apples touching sides of pan.

Spoon another 1/3 of batter on top.

Make another ring of remaining apples & top with remaining batter. Bake for 1 1/4 hours or until done. Cover top with aluminum foil if it begins to overbrown.

Allow to cool to lukewarm before turning out onto serving plate.
Freezes well.

Birthday Feast

I have always loved other people's birthdays. It's wonderful to focus on celebrating a friend and helping them feel special on the commemoration of their birth. Other people's birthdays possess none of the bittersweet undertones of one's own birthday and I just love giving presents to the people I love.

Today is Prof. Hubs' birthday and one of my gifts to him is a birthday feast. I am planning on preparing the chard tart as an appetizer, a green salad with lemon vinaigrette, a beet and goat cheese salad, sweet potatoes, steak, and for dessert a family favorite: the famous Chocolate Chip Mint cake!

Note: This is about as close to 'semi-homemade' as I get... But it's just so delicious and cheap, why not use these shortcuts?

Mom's famous Chocolate Chip Mint cake

1 package devil's food cake mix (Duncan Hines is my preference)

1 package instant Jell-o chocolate pudding

3/4 tsp mint extract

4 eggs

1/2 cup oil

1 1/4 cup water

1 package chocolate chips (I prefer dark)

Preheat oven to 350 and grease a bundt pan.

Mix all ingredients until well combined (about 2 minutes with an electric mixer)

Pour into bundt pan, bake for 50-60 minutes, until toothpick comes out clean. When cooled, invert pan and cover with a dusting of cocoa powder or powdered sugar if you'd like...