Better Baking with Beer

Once upon a time, a few years ago, I tried to make a Guinness Chocolate Cake. The operative word in  that sentence being, "tried." It did not go well. However, never one to be bested by inanimate objects or ingredients, I knew I had to try again. Despite or perhaps because of Boyfriend's taunt of, "You remember what happened last time you tried to mix Guinness and chocolate, right?" I felt compelled to try Modern Domestic's scrumptious Chocolate-Guinness Oreos. Yum! 

At the time, I'd never made a layer cake before and was very excited about the idea. I love chocolate cake and Boyrfriend loves Guinness; what could be better than a decandent chocolate stout cake? I ran right out to the store and bought some one-use cake pans. (Big Mistake #1).

As I mentioned, I have never made a layer cake before. Come to think of it, I don't think I had made a cake, period, other than my trademark (read: idiot-proof) pistachio bundt cake, before attempting this four-layer edifice. Suffice is to say, I had no idea what I was in for. As you can see, the recipe calls for 4 cups of flour. Having little or no previous cake experience, this did not strike me as a large amount. So I went along my merry way, sifting and mixing and happily humming to myself, as I often do when baking.

Holy mackerel, did I make a mess. Big Mistake #2: I didn't let the cake layers cool enough before trying to stack and frost. Big Mistake #3: when my not-porperly-set cake layers started to crack and fall apart I tried to "glue" them back together with frosting, which, of course, was melty rather than sticky because the cake was still warm. Right about now, my kitchen had started to resemble the scene from "Sleeping Beauty" when the little green fairy tries to bake a birthday cake without magic - or an oven. If I had a broom, I certainly would have tried to prop my cake layers up with handle. (Big Mistake #4: Not making a fantastic "Slime Rickey" from YumSugar, to get me through the hard times). Unfortunately, at this point, panic had set in. As softball-sized chunks of semi-frosted cake goo tumbled to the floor, I  frantically attempted to salvage the base layer, by throwing - yes throwing! - falling, double handfuls of cake across the room into the garbage bin. (Big Mistake #5) By this time, I am literally covered in cake and frosting, nearly up to my elbows, not to mention that I have stepped in cake and am tracking it all over the kitchen. All the commotion drew Boyfriend, who, surveying the scene, kindly informed me that, "It's ok; I don't even like chocolate cake." Blerg!!

The moral of this story? Well, there really isn't one. I can tell you that throwing mounds of semi-solid cake across the room creates more problems than it solves. Right. How about: if at first you don't succeed, try and try again. 

Chocolate-Guinness Flavored Success!

P.S. It has been brought to my attention that I didn't actually write about these amazing cookies in this post.  Therefore, it should be noted that these cookies were yumtastic. It has to be a pretty exceptional recipe to get me excited about roll-out cookies. These were well worth the effort. They weren't too soft or too sweet. As one of my work colleagues put it, "Ohh, that cookie was a moment."

Colossal Chili Fail

As my father so affectionately put it, "How the hell do you screw up chili?" I am chili-cursed. Seriously.

No, there are no pictures. Yes, it was that bad. I don't know what went wrong, but - oh, man - did it go wrong. Every time I try to make chili something invariably goes wrong. And not just, let's-throw-some-junk-in-there-and-fix-it wrong. Irrevocably wrong. Grrr.... argh.

Rather than use one of my mother's handed-down chili recipes, I thought I would try my hand at this Bon Appetit recipe. Why? I don't know. I am masochist? Obvi. So, I whipped up this disaster over the weekend to my acute disappointment. Note: I made this recipe more or less as written. I did make a few minor substitutions, but nothing that should have altered the overall flavor of the dish. Or so I thought.

The overall appearance upon serving was a little disconcerting; my immediate thought was, "This is chili. It ain't always pretty." But, secretly, I knew. I knew as Boyfriend and I tried our first bites and a heavy silence enveloped the apartment. I have to give bonus points to the boy for waiting until I pushed my own bowl away (and had emitted several grumbly curses to myself) before he gave off any obvious signal that it was inedible. Good boy.

But seriously, does the god of chili have it in for me? The first time I tried to make chili, I inexplicably doubled the amount of chili powder called for in the recipe. Hot. At the time, I managed to balance it out enough with extra tomatoes, black beans and anything else that was in arm's reach and vaguely complementary to chili, so that it was cool enough to eat, but the story doesn't end there. A few months later, I tried to make this chili again (with the appropriate amount of chili powder) and it was ... just ... missing ... something. Unfortunately, I didn't write down what I added to my first attempt, which apparently were the key ingredients to making it delicious. Of course.

When all else fails, do what you should have done in the first place: listen to your mother. Mom has given me not one, but two tasty, fool-proof chili recipes. Have I made either of them? No. Knowing my penchant for screwing up chili, did I decide to go with the tried-and-true favorites, which have been served at our and our family friends' tables for 30 years? No. I had to give over to my hubris. I was high on my braised pork patties and eager for more glory. And what did I end up with? Funky meat glop, that made a disturbingly familiar thhh-plop sound as I spooned it into the garbage bin.

Now I have guilt.

Poor Boyfriend had to wait all day, smelling the deceptively appetizing aromas emanating from my beloved dutch oven, Rosy, only to be robbed of dinner and many successive and anticipated leftovers.  Mac 'n' cheese anyone?

FAIL.