St Patrick’s Day

For St. Patrick’s Day, make it with Irish beer

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, today’s recipes tackle what is becoming a slow-moving but notable trend: cooking with beer.

Beer is an ideal ingredient in food: It has more flavor than water, pairs well with both meat and vegetables and packs a lot of complexity in every drop. The only downside is that it tends to be bitter, but there are ways around that — often involving the judicious use of just a bit of sugar — if you want to use beer to bring out the fullest potential of your favorite dishes, savory and sweet.

Ireland, of course, is one of the great beer-brewing nations of the world. Cooking Irish food with Irish beer, as evidenced by today’s recipes, is — well, magically delicious.

When you think of Irish beer, you probably first think of Guinness; it may well be the single product most identified with the Emerald Isle. It has been around since 1759, and its taste, color and even the way it feels in the mouth are instantly recognized around the world.

There are other stouts, and even other stouts from Ireland, but if you are going to be cooking with it, you might as well go with Guinness. It’s Guinness. It’s iconic. It’s special.

For the first dish, I made a classic: Beef and Guinness Stew. This stew is perhaps the ultimate expression of Guinness; it brings it to its pinnacle. It is Guinness’ finest moment.

As the beef slowly simmers in the beer, their flavors blend and meld. The beef takes on an unusual richness, while the Guinness loses its beery qualities. Very few other ingredients go into the pot — just a couple of onions, a carrot or two, a clove of garlic, thyme and tomato paste.

Any Irish stew, of course, should be served with boiled potatoes or the Irish version of mashed potatoes called champ. And to sop up the leftover liquid, why not use homemade bread — especially bread that is made with Irish beer?

Lazy Irish Beer Bread is so ludicrously fast and easy it does not deserve to be called bread.
You can make it, start to finish, in an hour, and that counts preheating your oven (if your oven is quick to preheat). And most enticing of all, it is made from just three ingredients: self-rising flour, sugar and Irish beer or any beer of your choosing. I chose Harp, because it is a lager with a smooth and fairly mild taste. I did not want a bread with too powerful a flavor.

The result was surprisingly good. I’ve made better breads in my life, but none that have been remotely as easy as this. The effort-to-flavor ratio on this one is off the charts.

Finally, I went back to Guinness for dessert. Guinness finds its way into a surprising number of desserts, including ice cream. But I couldn’t pass up a chance to make Mr. Guinness’ Cake.

Mr. Guinness’ Cake originated in an advertisement for Guinness some years ago. According to Darina Allen, author of “Irish Traditional Cooking,” the ad read, “Over the past couple of centuries, our beer has acquired a modest reputation, but our cake is still little known. This seems a pity, for one enthusiast has described it as like eating dreams.”

And so it is, if you dream of eating fruitcake. I happen to like fruitcake, and this is better than any ordinary fruitcake. My colleagues agreed, and surely they don’t all like fruitcake. The cake was reduced to crumbs almost immediately after I put it out to be sampled. And it had not even been allowed to rest as long as it was supposed to.

Beef and Guinness Stew

Serves: 8 / Preparation time: 25 minutes / Total time: 3 hours
2 pounds lean beef for stew
3 tablespoons oil, divided
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
Salt and pepper
Cayenne pepper
2 large onions, peeled, coarsely chopped
1 large garlic clove, crushed (optional)
2 tablespoons tomato paste, dissolved in 4 tablespoons water
1¹/₄ cups (10 ounces) Guinness
³/₄ cup carrots, peeled, cut into chunks
Sprig of thyme
Chopped parsley

Trim the meat of any fat or gristle, cut into 2-inch cubes and toss them in a bowl with 1 tablespoon oil. In a large bowl, season the flour with salt, pepper and a pinch or two of cayenne pepper. Toss the meat in this mixture.
In a large, wide skillet, heat the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil on high heat. Working in batches if necessary, brown the meat on all sides. Add the onions, crushed garlic and tomato paste to the pan, cover, and cook gently for about 5 minutes.

Transfer the contents of the pan to a Dutch oven, and pour some of the Guinness into the skillet. Bring to a boil and stir to dissolve the caramelized meat juices in the pan. Pour onto the meat with the remaining Guinness; add the carrots and thyme. Stir, taste and add a little more salt if necessary.
Cover and simmer very gently until the meat is tender, 2 to 3 hours. The stew may be cooked on top of the stove or in the oven at 300 degrees. Remove thyme, taste and correct the seasoning.

Sprinkle with chopped parsley and serve with boiled or mashed potatoes.

From “Irish Traditional Cooking” by Darina Allen. Tested by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
235 calories (38% from fat), 10 grams fat (3 grams sat. fat), 9 grams carbohydrates, 26 grams protein, 115 mg sodium, 75 mg cholesterol, 1 gram fiber.

Lazy Irish Beer Bread

Serves: 10 / Preparation time: 10 minutes / Total time: 1 hour
This recipe will only work with self-rising flour. Do not use all-purpose flour.
2¹/₂ cups self-rising flour, see note above
12 ounces beer, room temperature (we used Harp)
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Coat inside of a loaf pan with butter or nonstick spray.
In a large bowl, using a spoon or your hands, mix together all ingredients only until well-mixed. Do not use a beater or mixer.
Pour batter into loaf pan. Bake 45 minutes.
From food.com. Tested by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
135 calories (0% from fat), 0 grams fat (0 grams sat. fat), 27 grams carbohydrates, 3 grams protein, 375 mg sodium, 0 mg cholesterol, 1 gram fiber.

Mr. Guinness’ Cake

Serves: 12 / Preparation time: 30 minutes / Total time: 3 hours (not all active time)
Candied fruit is what goes inside fruitcakes. It can be hard to find when it is not the holiday season. You can substitute dried cherries or dried blueberries, dried pineapple (which is what we used), chopped dates, dried cranberries or more raisins.
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons brown sugar
4 eggs, lightly beaten
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1²/₃ cups raisins
1²/₃ cups golden raisins
²/₃ cup mixed candied fruit, see note
³/₄ to 1 cup chopped walnuts
8 to 12 tablespoons Guinness, divided
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees and grease a 7-inch (or 8-inch or 9-inch) round cake pan. Cut out a round piece of parchment paper, place in the bottom and grease it, too.

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until light; about 3 minutes. Gradually beat in the eggs. Sift the flour and pumpkin pie spice together, then fold into the mixture. Add the raisins, golden raisins, candied fruit and walnuts. Stir 4 tablespoons of the Guinness into the mixture and mix to a soft dropping consistency.

Pour batter into the prepared pan and bake for 1 hour. Reduce heat to 300 degrees and continue baking 1¹/₂ hours more. Let cool.

Remove from cake pan. Turn cake over and prick base of cake all over with a skewer. Spoon the remaining 4 to 8 tablespoons of Guinness over the base of the cake. Wrap in waxed paper and keep cake for 1 week before eating.

From “Irish Traditional Cooking” by Darina Allen. Tested by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
575 calories (38% from fat), 24 grams fat (11 grams sat. fat), 86 grams carbohydrates, 7 grams protein, 55 mg sodium, 105 mg cholesterol, 4 grams fiber.

Chocolate cake recipe

St Patricks Day is here!

This gives us the perfect excuse to throw lashings of booze into all our desserts: whether it’s Baileys in brownies or whiskey in whoopee pies.

That said, I always end up going back to my favourite St Patricks Day recipe: Guinness Chocolate Cake.

Each slice is damp, dark and rich.

The Guinness adds a little spice and tastes delicious with the dark chocolate.
Thanks to its beery taste and dense, moist texture, you can enjoy this cake plain without needing to add anything extra.

However, if you prefer, you can slather on some cream cheese topping on the cake to mimic the head of a Guinness pint.

Prep time: 10 mins
Baking time: 45 mins

Ingredients:

For the cake –
250ml Guinness
250g butter
350g caster sugar
40g cocoa powder
100g dark chocolate, melted
140ml créme fraîche
2 eggs
2 tsps vanilla extract
270g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

(Picture: Ellie Holland)

For the cream cheese topping –
100g icing sugar
200g cream cheese
100ml double cream
1 tsp vanilla extract

(Picture: Ellie Holland)

Method:
1. Grab a saucepan and gently melt the butter with the Guinness over a low-medium heat.
Once the butter has melted and cooled slightly, whisk in the caster sugar.
2. In the same saucepan, whisk in the cocoa powder and melted dark chocolate (you can melt the chocolate in quick bursts in the microwave or in a bowl over a pot of hot water).
3. Next, grab a large bowl and whisk together the créme fraîche, eggs and vanilla extract for about three minutes.
Once fully combined, pour into the Guinness and chocolate saucepan mixture.
4. In the saucepan, mix in the flour, baking powder, bicarb of soda.
Pour into a greased 9 inch cake tin and bake for 45 minutes in the oven at 180°C (Gas Mark 4).
5. Once baked and cooled, prepare the cream cheese topping by whipping the icing sugar, cream cheese, double cream and vanilla extract together.
You can whip the double cream separately and mix in with the other ingredients, if you prefer.
Slather onto the cake and create some peaks – being neat is not needed here!
Transfer onto a serving plate and enjoy.