Chocolate Orange Guinness Cake

Now for St. Patrick's we wanted to do a very non-traditional type theme but still keeping true to the key points. Well except when it came to dessert. We made a very traditional Irish dessert, Chocolate Orange Guinness Cake.

 Plus it was perfect for orange picking in Alixx's yard. Yea for fresh fruit!

 Cast of characters: butter, salt, orange, eggs, brown sugar, flour, baking soda, cocoa powder, and Guinness (not pictured).

 First things first, add the brown sugar and butter to a bowl and mix it! If you are Alixx you'll try and convince Kelsey to just go ahead and eat the batter. Thank goodness Kelsey reigned her in. But no matter keep mixing until light and fluffy.

 In a separate bowl combine the flour, salt...

 Baking powder...

 and cocoa powder.

Mix it all up!

 While that is going down zest your orange! 

 Add the zest to the sugar and butter mixture. It will smell out of this world. 

 First you'll add one egg at a time with one spoonful of flour mixture. Then once you run out of eggs you'll add the flour mixture a little bit at a time, adding the Guinness little by little as well. Until everything is gone. 

 Pour the mix into a pan, or two, and place it into the oven.

 Our cakes came out so so so thin. 

 Kelsey presented the itty bitty thin cake. We laughed so hard about those cakes. 

 While the cakes cool, it's time to mix up some icing! But make sure you check your powdered sugar stock. It would be horrible to realize last second there is not enough powdered sugar to make some icing. We know because it happened. 

 Alixx took her frustration out on another orange. She zested like no one has zested before. Please ignore the messy pantry.

 But no worries, if you've got some pre-made icing just add the orange zest and orange juice to the container and mix. It will smell and taste like an orange creamsicle. No joke. The orange is strong with this one. And yes, we did just say that.

 Now since we had two thin cakes we were doing it layered so there was a nice thin layer applied to the bottom cake.

 Then to the top cake!

 Then we covered it to ensure a nice smooth coating over the entire delicious cake.

 Place some extra zest on top and serve! 

Opps! Cake toppled over but it was still good! Now the cake turned out really dense. And while thinking it over we decided it probably has something to do with the cakes turning out so thin. But no matter, it was still the perfect was to end our Second Friday St. Patrick's day feast.


Chocolate Orange Guinness Cake
For batter:

• 1 cup of butter
• 1 cup of brown sugar
• 1 1/4 cup of all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder
• 2 heaping tablespoons of cocoa
• Orange zest from 1 orange
• 4 large eggs
• 1/2 cup of Guinness

For icing:

• 1 container of plain icing (or 1/2 cup of butter and 1 cup of powdered sugar)
• Juice and zest from 1 orange 

1. Pre-heat oven to 375F.
2. Cream the butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy/
3. In a separate bowl combine the flour, salt, baking powder and cocoa into a bowl.
4. Add the orange zest to the brown sugar and butter mixture and beat in the eggs one at a time, adding a spoonful of the flour mixture with each egg.
5. After adding the eggs, gently mix in the Guinness, a tablespoon at a time, also including another spoonful of flour with each addition.
6. Any additional flour can be folded in gently. Blend well, but be careful not to over-beat.
7. Divide your mixture into two well-greased pans (for a layered cake), smooth and place into pre-heated oven.
8. Once centered, reduce oven temperature to 350F and bake for about 35 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.
9. Remove and allow to cool.
10. To make icing, zest another orange and add the zest to a container of icing. Also add the juice from the orange to the icing and mix well.
11. Once the cakes are cold spread 1/4 of the icing in between the layers and use the rest to cover the cakes. 
12. Cut and enjoy!

Again we would like to thank you for being so understanding with the lateness of these posts. It won't happen again. We promise! 

Corned Beef with Guinness Sauce

So the main course for our Irish Adventure was Corned Beef with a Guinness Sauce. Now the cooking of the corned beef was simple enough but since it had to sit for quite a few hours in the crock pot, Alixx went ahead and got it all set up in the morning:

 Cast of characters: corned beef (~3lbs.), carrots, onion, potatoes, celery, ginger ale.

 Cut the carrots into thick slices and throw them at the bottom of the crock pot.

 Next place the corned beef on top.

 Quarter your onion,

 And throw it in the pot

 Next halve the potatoes and slice the celery thick and place around the beef.

 Add the ginger ale instead of water, it's a small change but it'll make the corned beef have such a wonderful flavor and it is perfectly juicy. Also, you'll want to add the little seasoning packet the corned beef comes with. Set it and forget it!  Please don't sue us Ronco Rotisserie... 

 Anyways Alixx just wanted to share with you how much she love this little peeler. It's nice and sturdy and not one of those little flimsy ones you see every now and then. 

Plus! It has a blade on one edge so you can slice and peel with one tool!  

Back to cooking, after 6 hours take the corned beef out and cut it up. Try not to eat every slice as you cut it. It is a terrible terrible thing to do.

We even made our own Guinness sauce in honor of St. Patrick's day. It was so so delicious. That being said we took 2 pictures during the whole process. But no worries, the recipe (purely our own) is listed below. Try it out!


Corned Beef

• 3 carrots, sliced thick
• 1 (3lb.) corned beef brisket
• 1 large onion, quartered
• 2 potatoes, halved
• 2 celery sticks, sliced thick
• 1 1/2 cups of ginger ale

1. Place all ingredients in the crock pot in the following order: carrots, corned beef brisket, onion, celery, potatoes, ginger ale, and seasoning packet.
2. Cover and cook on LOW 10-12 hours or on HIGH 5-6 hours.
3. Remove and cut against the grain. Serve with our special Guinness Sauce!

Guinness Sauce

• 1/4 cup of butter
• 1 cup of whipping cream
• 1/2 cup of Guinness 
• Salt and Pepper to taste

1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.
2. While mixing the butter add the cream and bring it to a slow boil.
3. Next add the Guinness and mix, bring to a boil and allow to burn off for about 1 minute. 
4. Taste the mix and add salt and pepper according to your own tastes.
5. Allow to cool a little and add to corned beef, or any thing else your heart desires. 

Coleslaw

So our very first recipe was coleslaw! It was such an adventure. We tried a lot of different ingredients and it turned out amazing. Well, maybe we put too many ingredients but it was still amazing. Maybe we'll go back and revisit this bad boy, but for now this is our very own Coleslaw recipe!

Cast of characters: Mayo, cabbage, pepper, light corn syrup, sandwich spread, pineapple vinegar, spicy brown mustard, no-salt seasoning and salt.

 First things first cut up the cabbage!

 Kelsey is a pro cabbage cutter. We were going for a very rough type cut, kinda like a salad type coleslaw. It was perfect.

 Once all cut up, in a separate bowl mix the coleslaw dressing. Add the mayo.

 Add the sandwich spread.

 Add some spicy brown mustard.

 Next the pineapple vinegar.  Also you'll want to add the seasoning at this point. That means no-salt seasoning, pepper and salt. Mix well and taste. After that, add the light corn syrup to taste and mix well.

 Introduce your beautiful dressing to the cabbage. 

 Oh beautiful coleslaw. Place this in the fridge and let it chill for a couple hours it'll be super divine.

Coleslaw

• 1 cabbage, cut to your liking
• 1 cup of mayo
• 1/3 cup of sandwich spread
• 1 tablespoon of spicy mustard
• 2 tablespoons of pineapple vinegar
• 1 teaspoon of no-salt seasoning
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1 tablespoon of light corn syrup, or more according to taste

1. Chop up the cabbage to the desired level of cabbage bits.
2. In a separate bowl add the mayo, sandwich spread, spicy mustard, and pineapple vinegar and mix well.
3. Add the no-salt seasoning, pepper and salt and mix well.
4. Taste and add light corn syrup according to your preference. Mix together.
5. Grab your cut-up cabbage and mix in the dressing.
6. After fully incorporated into each other place in the fridge for a couple hours and then enjoy!

Hasselback Potatoes

Oh hasselback potatoes are so simple and delicious to make. We suggest you make it today for dinner. Or lunch. Or snack. Or breakfast. Just make them!

Now we decided we wanted to do a bacon-garlic potato but just remember you can put whatever you like in it. Get creative! Cast: potatoes, bacon, garlic, butter, and olive oil.

First make your butter and olive oil mix. Nothing to complicated just melt the butter and stir in olive oil. Set aside.

Next, make slits down the entire length of the potato.

Remember, the more cuts the more you can stuff!

Once the potatoes are cut slice your garlic very, very thin!

Then put the garlic in every other cut, or every cut if you want it extra garlicy.

Oh bacon. We meet again. Slice the bacon thin and again place the bacon in the cut potato.

Now some recipes say to simply dunk the potatoes in the butter olive oil mix but we find if you pour it over the potato the butter gets into every nook and cranny and makes it even more delicious.

Place on a baking sheet and sprinkle generously with salt and pepper. Then throw in the oven for ~40 minutes.

Hasselback Potatoes

• 6 potatoes (we were cooking for a few people but you can always cut this recipe in half)
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 3 strips of bacon
• 1/4 cup of butter
• 1 tablespoon of olive oil
• Salt and Pepper
• Parsley (optional)

1. Pre-heat oven to 400F.
2. Melt the butter in a microwave safe bowl and add olive oil.  Allow to sit a cool.
3. Wash potatoes and then carefully cut slits along the entire length. The key here is the more cuts the more you can stuff it.
4. Slice the garlic very thin, and place in the cuts.
5. Slice the bacon in small cuts and place in the cuts.
6. Place potato in a bowl and pour the butter-olive oil mix over the potato. 
7. Place  on a foiled baking sheet.
8. Next, generously add salt and pepper to the top of the potato. 
9. Put the baking sheet into the oven for 40-45 minutes, depending on how well-done you want the potato to be.
10. Take out of oven and allow to cool for 10 minutes.
11. Serve and sprinkle with parsley (optional).