There's Always Next Year (Or The Year After That) ... And Until Then, There's Cupcakes

Time for another round of baking therapy! Another Cleveland sports team underachieves ... and unlike the Cavs, it's not a so-close-you-could-taste-it underachieves, it's a great big couldn't-taste-it-if-it-was-served-in-front-of-you-with-a-spoon underachieves. Not are the Indians way, way out of playoff contention, they're in full blown rebuilding mode, complete with trading away ... well, everyone that mattered.

The dismal state of things truly hit home for me when I watched the funny (and wistful) Major League for the first time the other night. "Watch, GoatSpawn, this may be the only time you see a Cleveland sports team go to the playoffs, " Foodgoat said, "It's what you call 'fiction'."

After my baking therapy project for the Cavs' season, someone suggested that it wasn't cake they needed to handle the trauma of Cleveland sports losses, it was whiskey. But why not have both?

To assuage the pain of Cleveland Indians season (and next, this re-building mode will probably last a while), I made chocolate whiskey cupcakes.

Chocolate Whiskey Cupcakes

1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter
3/4 cup unsweetened (not Dutch process) cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups strong brewed coffee (I used the dark roast from Phoenix for extra flavor)
1/2 cup whiskey
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
3 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1. Preheat over to 325°F.
2. Heat the coffee, butter, and cocoa powder in a heavy medium saucepan over low heat until the butter is melted, whisking occasionally.
3. Add the sugars and whisk until dissolved. Remove from the heat, transfer the mixture to a large bowl, add the whiskey, and let cool.

1. Meanwhile, whisk the flour, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. In a separate, small bowl, whisk the eggs and vanilla. Slowly whisk the eggs into the chocolate mixture until combined. Add the flour mixture and whisk until smooth. The batter will be pretty thin.
2. Pour the batter into a cupcake pan (or Reynolds Fun Shapes, which made heart-shaped cupcakes) and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out mostly clean, about 15 to 18 minutes.

You can frost them of course, but rather than run the risk of the ugliest cupcakes in the world, I just dusted them with powdered sugar just before serving. Easier, neater, prettier, and dare I say, tastier.

They turned out infinitely better than the chocolate sourdough cake ... light and fluffy (I learned my lesson regarding types of cocoa powder), not too sweet, moist, and a hint of whiskey.

Cleveland sports may not be improving, but my baking abilities are. And if the first Browns preseason game is any indication, I may be whipping up pies and custards and cookies by the end of the season.

Things About Cocoa Powder I Wish I'd known Before I Made the Cake

Remember how I said the sourdough chocolate cake was a bit too dry?

I think I know why, and not just because I left it in the bread basket too long.

It's because the recipe calls for natural cocoa, and I used the cocoa powder I had on hand - which is a Dutch-process cocoa.

What's the difference?

Cocoa powder is made by grinding cocoa seeds and removing the cocoa butter from the dark, bitter cocoa solids. This is natural unsweetened cocoa powder.

Dutch cocoa is natural cocoa which has been additionally treated with an alkali to neutralize the natural acids present in cocoa powder. "Dutching" makes it darker in color, milder in taste, and, its big advantage, more soluble for cooking.

But because their acidity levels are completely different, you can't just substitute natural cocoa for Dutch cocoa (as I did). Natural, acidic, cocoa will react with baking soda, an alkali, causing a leavening action that makes cakes rise. Dutch cocoa, since it has been neutralized, won't react with any baking soda in recipes. As a result, when it is used instead in a recipe that calls for natural cocoa, the recipe "will fail to form as expected, and the resulting product may be flat or very dry."

And that's how my cake turned out!

Now, I have currently scribbled into the cookbook:

If you only have natural cocoa but the recipe calls for Dutch cocoa...

3 tablespoons of Dutch cocoa = 3 tablespoons natural cocoa powder plus pinch (1/8 teaspoon) baking soda

If you only have Dutch cocoa but the recipe calls for natural cocoa...

3 tablespoons natural cocoa = 3 tablespoons Dutch-processed cocoa plus 1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar or 1/8 teaspoon lemon juice or vinegar

If you don't know which kind of cocoa to use in a recipe ...

Look for the presence of other acidic ingredients - if there are no other sources of acidity, the recipe may need natural cocoa.

Does the cocoa need to dissolve easily? It may need Dutch cocoa powder. Natural cocoa needs to be dissolve in hot water or alcohol.

You Want to Add What to the Chicken Paprikash?

Foodgoat's sous chef, the delicious bottle of beer, has made many excellent cooking suggestions to Foodgoat in the past. He has recommended more hot sauce, the adding of a new spice, the use of more beer. Once in a while, it doesn't work (usually, too many hot peppers), but overall, his suggestions have been good ones.

But this time, the suggestion was so out there, Foodgoat wasn't sure if he should listen or not.

The dish was chicken paprikash, which Foodgoat has made so many times he could make it in his sleep. Having perfected the recipe, he has taken lately to playing around with it, adding new ingredients and twists. But was this idea of new ingredient too weird for an old standby?

What did that bottle of beer suggest that Foodgoat add to chicken paprikash? Chocolate.

The extreme dark chocolate chips that we used for sourdough pancakes.

He added a handful, and wouldn't ya know it, it actually tasted wonderful. Because we used dark chocolate, it actually gave it an earthiness rather than a sweetness that didn't seem chocolate-y at all. Adding even more chocolate the next day turned the chicken paprikash into something akin to chicken mole, which was further afield, but still delicious.

Traditional? No. Tasty? Yes.

Sourdough Pancakes

Just about the time we ran out of the 25 pounds of flour that we ordered around the holidays (somehow I thought it would last much longer), King Arthur Flour had another free shipping deal and we got to order not only another 25 pounds, but other cooking products to try from one of our favorite stores. So far a big hit has been the Schokinag Extreme Dark Bittersweet Chocolate Chips, which is 75% chocolate liquor.

At first we enjoyed just popping the delicious, deep flavored chocolate chips in our mouth, but then Foodgoat added them to something he's been making Sunday mornings often these days, sourdough pancakes.

Thus was born bittersweet chocolate chip sourdough pancakes, which are really quite delicious. Despite the chocolate chips, it's not a kid's pancake: it wasn't sweet at all, just warm, subtle sourness with intense, rich chocolate. Just a drizzle of maple syrup for a touch of sweetness, although it really didn't need it.

The recipe is a modified version of one in the Good Home cookbook, which lately has been my go-to cookbook for classic recipes.

Sourdough Pancakes

1 large egg, separated
1/2 cup mixture of sour cream and milk (because it's what we had on hand, you can also use evaporated milk only)
1 tablespoon oil
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups sourdough starter
bittersweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat griddle or skillets on medium high.
2. In a small bowl, beat egg white until stiff but not dry.
3. In a large bowl, whisk egg yolk, sour cream/milk, oil, sugar, baking soda, and salt until blended. As quickly as possible mix in the starter with a spoon. Gently fold in the egg white.
4. Grease the griddle, ladle about 1/3 cup of batter for each pancake. Add a couple of chocolate chips. Let cook 2-4 minutes, flip, cook a few more minutes. Keep going! Keep warm and serve immediately.
   

Happy 6 Months GoatSpawn!

We celebrated her half year birthday by eating her cupcake (she would have wanted it that way). It was an especially delicious mocha flavored cupcake from the West Side Market.

Thank Goodness Easter is Over

It's a great relief to me that Easter season is over, because Easter candy is quite possibly the most unappealing holiday candy of the entire year. There are Peeps (no one actually eats these, do they?), there are Cadbury eggs (raw eggs, even pretend candy raw eggs ... eww), and then there are the aisles and aisles of cheap, sugary, probably grainy and untasty, milk chocolate bunnies.

In third grade, we had to sell foot tall milk chocolate bunnies. I ended up eating a lot of them myself. I must have overdosed then, because I can't stand the idea of eating a Easter chocolate bunny now.

I left my heart in Ghiradelli

Just came back from San Francisco and a whirlwind of wedding planning, and walking around the City is just what the doctor ordered. It's been so long that even Fisherman's Wharf and chaos of Union Square was delightful.

Even Ghiradelli Square managed to charm me. How did they do it? One, they have a sock store. Yes, a store just for socks of all kinds.

Second, the Ghiradelli store. Normally I am not a particular fan of Ghiradelli chocolate -- I've been more of a Scharffen-Bergen devotee (at least before they were bought up by Hersey). When Ghiradelli gives out free chocolate samples, though, I don't turn them down.

But what really won me over was their new Intense Dark chocolate bars. The Twilight Delight flavor is 72% Cacao dark chocolate ... and it was actually delicious. Forget that milk chocolate business, dark chocolate is the way to go, every time.

The Ghiradelli chocolate shop also has a soft spot in my heart because my sorority sisters bonded over a couple of Earthquakes - massive ice cream sundaes meant to be shared by a table of people.

Chocolate What?

Foodgoat & I finally ventured into Jack's Deli, a longstanding family-owned "corned beef haven" just down the street, and which always seems full (even on an early weekday night). Jack's reminded me of the little deli we went to in Las Vegas, which was meant to remind me of traditional, old-style New York neighborhood deli. The menu was huge and filled with odd (at least to me) dishes like chopped liver, gelite fish, and bagels for dinner.

And lots of corned beef. To Foodgoat's chagrin, corned beef to me is crumbly and comes out of a can. He'd like to banish the image of my family and I happily eating a big dish of canned corn beef and cabbage right in front of him, but it's burned into his brain for eternity.

But at Jack's Deli, of course, corned beef looks like thinly sliced pieces of meat. Thinly sliced pieces of meat (6 inches) piled up high on top of my two potato pancakes (1 inch). Served with sour cream (Good) AND applesauce (good but unexpected).

But what really surprised me at Jack's was my drink. I ordered a Chocolate Phosphate because I had never heard of it and because I wanted to order a drink that sounds like it belongs in a chemistry lab.

I got a soda glass filled with dark brown liquid and bubbles on top that resembled the surface of the brain. Mmm!

Apparently, chocolate phosphates are a regional thing - perhaps even a just local Cleveland thing.

A phosphate is a carbonated drink, made from carbonated soda water, flavored syrups and phosphoric acid, an ingredient still used today in many brands of soda (or pop, if you really insist on calling it that). Soda jerks kept the phosphate in a shaker bottle (like hot sauce or worchestershire) and added a few drops to each drink.

The first sip: freaky bizarre. A little too bubbly. I felt like chocolate powder and water was going up my nose, and that's not tasty.

The second sip: better. Like watery chocolate milk, without the creamy taste and texture of milk. The chocolate powder still didn't feel fully mixed in though.

The third sip: Foodgoat suggested putting in the ice that the waitress left for it. I dropped it in, swirled it around and sipped. A ha! Much better. Chocolatey! Refreshing! Phosphatey!

The conclusion: I like chocolate, but I'm not so fond of the chocolate phosphate. Not so much because of the taste, though, but the texture. But chocolate to me should be rich and creamy, not watery and bubbly. In the phosphate, chocolate just doesn't match.

White Chocolate Kit Kat

Who can blog when on one side there's a family member getting meanly and unjustly fired by Crazy Lady Boss, and a Foodgoat going through self-inflicted WarCrack detox and withdrawal on the other side? Oh, and throw in Freezing Cold Rain and the official start of Sock Weather.

Not Ladygoat, that's for sure.

I've been eating, but it hasn't been exciting eating, and it hasn't been adventurous eating. And there's no point in blogging about ordinary, everyday, just-get-the-stomach-to-stop-bothering-me eating.

Perhaps I'm just depressed because the last food adventure I had ended badly. It was a brief affair, a long time in blog years ago. I was younger, but that's no excuse: I was seduced by the glitz, the newness of it all. But nothing about it was pretty. I didn't even tell Foodgoat about it, I was so ashamed.

I tried the Kit Kat White Chocolate.

I don't know why I did it, it was just there by the cashier! It was a mistake. It's so clear to me now. White chocolate, despite its name, is no chocolate. The whole thing was chalky, horribly chalky, and the sweetness was so fake. I hated it, really. It didn't mean anything to me. And it will never happen again, I swear.