Chocolate Covered Candied Malt

Okay so when I said I'd be out of commission for a week I totally lied. Turns out our boy is really uninterested in cooperating and so Jo's still pregnant. Crazy. Instead of a break, I'll finally talk about the really amazing chocolate covered candied malt that I made for my birthday a couple weeks ago. I originally got this idea from the Brewer's Plate as The Bent Spoon, an ice cream place in Princeton, brought some malt ice cream with this stuff mixed into it. When I was thinking about what to do for my birthday, I decided to remake that except with a white chocolate ice cream base which meant making the chocolate covered malt. The Bent Spoon people were nice enough to respond to a twitter question and suggested some types of malts to use. They also said tuiihat they candied it before covering it in chocolate which I would never have done otherwise so double bonus.

To start, obviously you'll need to buy ingredients. If you aren't a homebrewer, first you'll go to a homebrew store and buy one pound bags of malt. I bought two bags but 2 lbs is quite a bit more than you probably want. Just use your judgment, it's not like they are expensive at $2.50 or whatever a bag. As far as the type of malt, the flavors were muted a bit in the final product so go with one that tastes reasonably good raw but that's about all that matters.

Baking during the Holidays

I know it has been a while since my last post but that's the holidays for you. I basically spent the last 10 days eating and drinking almost constantly. Have a lot of different beers to write about at this point as a result. However, it's going to take a couple days to get back into things since I'm a lazy bum so I'm starting with an easy one. Writing about stuff I baked with beer!

I made two things over the holiday, one really easy one and one slightly more complicated. The first thing was just a plain old beer bread. This is as simple as it sounds, just a normal bread made with an entire bottle of beer instead of all water. I have a bunch of Brooklyn Brown Ale in the house so I decided to just use that but you can really use almost anything that has a maltier base. I don't know what something bitter would do to the bread so you may want to avoid IPAs and such but maybe someone with more knowledge would say they're okay too.

Allagash Cookbook at Pub & Kitchen

Last night I was invited to the release party at the Pub & Kitchen for Allagash: The Cookbook. I hadn't heard anything about the cookbook up until last week when the invite arrived in my inbox but apparently it's about two years in the making. That a ton of time was put into the book really shows in every piece of it: the pictures, the recipes, and the overall build quality.

The event had Allagash's Rob Tod and Suzy Woods along with the photographer for the book, Brian Smestad. In the below picture, Brian is in the middle, Rob to his left, and Suzy is to his left.

Weyerbacher Sour Black + Beer Blondies

Last Friday Weyerbacher released their newest sour beer, Sour Black. It was a black ale aged in the same wine barrels that previously held Rapture. They were doing a similar release to the past few so Jo and I drove up to Easton to check it out. When we arrived, there were already quite a few people in the brewery and samples were being served by the always friendly Weyerbacher staff. The first thing we tried was the Sour Black and both Jo and I thought it was quite good. Next I tried the Whiskey, the newest Brewer's Select, which was also quite delicious.

After wandering around a bit, talking to Natalie, and offering Beer Blondies (see recipe below) to people we made our way to the front and picked up some Whiskey, Sour Black and some Blasphemy. I totally forgot to take pictures though so you'll just have to use your imagination about how things looked. I do love how Weyerbacher offers samples of what they are selling you though. I realize it's because they have enough beer to actually be able to do so, but it's nice to be able to try things before deciding on how much to buy.

I was really curious if a full bottle of Sour Black would be as good as the small sample we had so Jo suggested we open one while watching the Euro Cup finals on Sunday.

Cheddar, Beer, and Mustard Pull-Apart Bread

I've recently become obsessed with the website Smitten Kitchen. I mean, how could I not? The pictures are awesome, the write-ups interesting, and the recipes are generally easy to follow. As such, I've been flipping through the archives for entertainment and came across the coolest bread: cheddar, beer, and mustard pull-apart bread. Look at that first picture! Doesn't it make you want to run to the kitchen and bake up a batch? Okay, well, maybe not you, but when we needed something to pair with some soup Jo made Sunday, I decided to give it a try.

Since you should just go to the link to see the recipe, I'll just go through my preparation and pictures instead without many specifics. It starts with combining beer and butter and heating it in a saucepan.

Baking with Beer at Cook

This past weekend, I went to a class at Cook. I'm not sure how to describe it totally, but Cook is a studio that has about 12 seats around a horseshoe bar that wraps around a kitchen area. They offer a variety of classes with various teachers. Back in March, Jo saw they were having a Baking with Beer class and so bought it for me for my birthday. The teacher was Liz Begosh (as you can see in the picture above) and she has a bunch of experience using beer in various confectionery concoctions.

As I said the room was set up to house 12 people sitting around a bar.

Chocolate Covered Stout Marshmallows

For the superbowl, Jo and I decided to make these chocolate covered stout marshmallows. While this is the actual recipe, I originally found it here on Pangaea Beer & Food when James posted about it. I figured it wouldn't be too complicated based on the recipe. Plus, how could homemade marshmallows covered in chocolate not be delicious?

So you start with two packets of unflavored gelatin, generally Knox as I don't know of any other brands. It gets mixed with some of the stout and vanilla and then you let it sit until it's ready. Looks sort of like this.

Doesn't look like much, but it'll become something delicious eventually.

Cooking with Beer 3 - Beer Dinner

Recently we got together with some friends (our monthly cooking club) and the theme for this month was cooking with beer.  While I didn't have too much trouble finding recipes, variety was an issue for me.  There were a bunch of bread, chocolate desserts and beef recipes that came up but not much else.  Still, Jo and I managed to find some ideas.  As I'm the resident beer geek and and I make dessert often (my wife would say too often) I was challenged with finding a tasty dessert.

With Jo's help (aka she found the recipe), I found a variation on brownies that looked really tasty.  I've made a similar recipe but it didn't include beer and flipped the order of brownie and blondie layers.  The new recipe was Black and Tan Brownies and they turned out quite well if I do say so myself (and I do!).  I followed the recipe but instead of the Guinness, I went with something more flavorful.  I'm betting any stout would work (chocolate, american or imperial), but I decided Dark Horse Too Cream Stout would work really well.

Cooking with Beer 2 - Christmas Rye Bread

For Christmas Eve, I made up a batch of Christmas Rye Bread for Jo's family.  The key to this is that it takes a bottle of stout instead of using water.  I put the recipe at the bottom of the post for those interested.

Beer isn't just for drinking

The November issue of BeerAdvocate magazine had a recipe for cranberry sauce made with Ommegang Three Philosophers.  I thought it sounded delicious and finally got a chance to test it out.

Add 12oz cranberries, 1c honey, 2 cinnamon sticks, 1c dried cherries, 1tsp kosher salt, and 2 sliced oranges to the pot.  Pour the Three Philosophers over the top as seen above.  Reserve a little for the chef.