PROJECT OF THE DAY: Irish Car Bomb Cake

The Boyfriend recently made a trip to Ireland, which of course means...GUINNESS!! Now, I don't really drink beer (or alcohol in general) but I couldn't pass on Guinness direct from the motherland. So since I couldn't drink the Guinness...I definitely had to cook with it. I looked up various recipes with Guinness in it online and I discovered a recipe for Guinness Cupcakes with Bailey's Irish Cream Icing a.k.a The Irish Car Bomb Cupcake. Yes. I know. Sounds intoxicating.

The Brother's birthday is coming up, and he loves to drink Irish Car Bombs, which made this the perfect weekend to make this recipe. The original recipe for the cupcakes included a ganache filling which required me to dig out a hole in every single cupcake and fill it with the ganache. That sounded a bit tedious to me, plus what would you do with that cake you dug out? I, for one, am against throwing away perfectly good food, nor did I really want to just eat a pile of cake crumbs. So, I decided against the cupcakes and instead make it into a good old fashioned cake with a whole ganache layer. And so...Commence, Project Irish Car Bomb Cake.

I started by first making the cake batter. The recipe called for boiling the butter and beer together and mixing in the chocolate, basically making a really thick chocolate syrup. I've never had to precook any ingredients while making a cake batter, so I found this to be an interesting step. My guess is that this step helps make the cake moister...but i'm no Alton Brown so I don't actually know.

butter, beer, and chocolate mixture

Since I was making a cake instead of the cupcakes, I baked the cake in 2 – 9 in. round pans. Then came the making of the ganache filling. I tasted it, and I thought it was missing a little something. So, I added an ingredient of my own, which i'm sorry, will remain a secret...but it definitely made a difference. It also took longer than expected to cool down in order for it to reach the desired consistency. Next time (cus there will certainly be a next time) I will definitely follow the recipe's suggestion of putting it in the fridge to cool. After that, I made the Bailey's Irish Cream Icing. The recipe suggested 3-4 tablespoons of Bailey's, I of course went for the full 4 tablespoons. Finally, it was time to build the cake. I spread all of the ganache filling on one of the cake layers then topped it with the other cake. I was kind of in a rush when I was making this cake so I kind of just slapped on all of the icing, so it wasn't all that pretty. At long last, it was time to eat!

The final product. Please don't judge my decorating skills based on this, I swear I can decorate a cake a whole lot better.

a slice with extra icing on the side

The cake was so uniquely delicious! It was really moist and the taste of Guinness was subtle but there was definitely enough that you could tell that this was no ordinary chocolate cake. The Bailey's icing is definitely what I think makes the cake, and I think i'll bump up the amount of Bailey's and make more icing in general next time. The icing itself was pretty sweet, but it complemented the cake very well as the cake and the ganache weren't all that sweet. I really think that making this into a cake was the right way to go. Since the ganache was a complete layer of the cake, I was able to get a bite of the creamy chocolate goodness in every bite. I've never had a real Irish Car Bomb...but if this cake tastes anything like the real thing...I might just have to start drinking them.

And so it begins...

After much convincing from The Boyfriend, I've decided to give this food blogging thing a try. I mean, ask anyone who knows me to describe me, and I guarantee they will all mention something about my love for food and how much I love to share my passion for it with others, whether it be through sharing my food concoctions or answering random food trivia. So hopefully, this enthusiasm for all things food related and enjoyment of sharing it will equate to a brilliant recipe for what I hope will at least be a somewhat entertaining blog that can compare to the already existing sea of other food blogs. I've never written anything for public viewing before, so I'm going to start off simply, by giving a little background on my self and some insight on my love for food. So here goes...

I am a self proclaimed foodie. Although, I suppose all foodies are “self proclaimed” as I'm preeeetty sure there is no knighting ceremony of sorts that would dub you with that title. *side note – an image totally just popped into my head of someone being knighted with a giant ladle* And of course, I also love to cook, and have learned to do so through countless hours of Food Network watching. I don't know exactly when this love for food started, I do know that it's definitely grown in recent years. Having grown up with uncles that were professional chefs and being part of a family that owns a bakery, I've been surrounded by food all my life. I'm pretty sure, though, that the biggest influence on my fondness of food came from living on my own in the Bay Area. Not only did it get me to start cooking more, since I was fending for myself, but man...the food atmosphere in the bay area...AWESOME.

Living in the Bay Area opened up my eyes to a plethora of different types of foods, food trends, and just food culture in general. If I hadn't lived there, I would never have been introduced to the deliciousness of my good friends Chicken Tikka Masala or Pad See Ew. Since living there, however, I have discovered that the bay area has been given a bad rep for being this crazy hippy dippy town where everyone eats nothing but grass. While, I'm sure you'll be able to find people that indeed do just that, there is so much more to the eating habits of this eclectic area. Seriously, living in the bay area = Food Knowledge Overload. I thought I was ahead of the game knowing what a vegan was. Boy was I wrong...that is old news my friends. There's farmer's markets, natural and organic, gluten-free, locavores, sustainable, and for those grass eaters...there's that oh-so-lovely raw food craze. (all of which I hope to share my knowledge of at some point in this blog's lifetime) This just opened up an amazing new world that utterly drew me in and was compelled to explore. Which has now culminated into my ever-growing interest of any and everything food related...and, of course, this blog. This new found knowledge has also encouraged me to embark on food adventures as well as to commence food projects, which will all of course now be documented for your reading pleasure. So be on the look out for those in future posts!