Lazy food

My dear friend Katie is a go-getter. She has a more-than-full-time job, is finishing up her master's degree, and still finds time to exercise. Over at her fabulous blog she's keeping track of how many miles she runs and all the healthy food she's making to help her stay in shape. She's even persuaded me to do a 5K run in August called The Color Run. I only agreed to it because it's actually a "run/walk," it's short (she's persuaded others to do marathons with her. Ha!), and because as we run, we're basically going to get tie-dyed. Awesome.

Even though I ought to be training for this run, spring has hit California strongly, and all I'm inspired to do is curl up and take naps in the sun like a cat. When it comes time for dinner, I'm lacking the inspiration necessary to take on big dishes that require a lot of cleaning afterward. So I introduce to you one of my favorite lazy meals: The sort-of burrito.

Melt cheese between two corn tortillas, slather some refried beans on top, add salsa, sour cream, and any other toppings you enjoy. (Olives and chopped lettuce are great, but I haven't been grocery-shopping in a while. Like I said, I've been lazy!) Fold it in half and nom away.

I'm not entirely sure who my audience is here, and if you're reading this thinking, "I'm a real adult and I need real meals!" then I say to you: Enjoy this as a snack or lunch instead of dinner.

To those of you reading this thinking, "Oh man. I'm hungry but don't have tortillas or cheese or anything except cereal" I say: Rock on. College is fun.

I enjoyed this particular meal with a glass of Two Buck Chuck because, well... college is fun.

(Longer blog post coming this weekend.)

Redux: The most luxurious cake ever made

Before I start, I want to apologize to any regular readers out there (do you exist?). My life has been crazy lately, and I've been struggling to keep up with the blog. I do have a bunch of entries to type up... the words just aren't coming out! Expect a burst of new entries following this one, and I will try much harder to  stay more regular. Thanks for your patience!

Now, on to the food.

Way back when I started this blog, I wrote about one of my favorite cakes: Guinness and chocolate cake. It was delicious, but I didn't do a step-by-step and didn't take very good pictures. So if you'll forgive me, today I'm going to fill you in on the details of this cake. (And yes, because I'm posting it twice, it means you really, really need to make it!)

Start off with a Guinness.

Pop it open and pour a fluid cup into a small pot over a medium-hot stove. Add a cup of butter (two sticks) and stir slowly until combined. Pour the rest of the Guinness into a glass and drink it.

At this point I'd like to reassure those who are not fans of beer that you can hardly taste the beer at all (and I'm one of those people who can taste the alcohol in anything, despite others saying you can't). You should, however, definitely add the beer because it gives the chocolate this deep, extra-rich flavor that you can't get in a normal cake. So add the beer.

Add cocoa powder and let it all mix together until the butter is melted and you want to drink the mix straight from the pan. Remove the pan from the heat and let it cool a little.

In a separate bowl, mix together sugar, flour, baking powder, and salt. As always, I split the sugars and did half a cup of granulated sugar and half a cup of brown sugar.

Set the dry ingredients aside, and in yet another bowl, mix eggs and sour cream. Beat them together until they're smooth.

We ran out of sour cream while I wasn't paying attention, so we used plain yogurt and that worked just fine. If you want to substitute, do so but use caution.

Pour the chocolate-butter-beer mix into the sour cream and eggs and beat it. Try not to lick the chocolate from the pot; it'll probably still be hot.

Slowly add the dry ingredients until everything is fully combined and looks like cake batter.

Add some chocolate chips. You know you want to.

Pour the batter into two floured 9-inch pans, or into a paper-lined cupcake tins. I can never do this evenly and it always works out, so don't try too hard.

Bake for about 30 minutes (if you're using cake pans). Check and see if the center has baked before you pull it out; if a toothpick or fork is inserted into the center and pulls out clean with no crumbs on it, then the cake is done and you should pull it out. Let the cakes cool on a wire pan. Try not to eat them.

Now for the Bailey's ganache. Sometimes I've been lazy and skipped this part, but every time I take the time to make it, I wonder why I ever thought I could go without it. So do it.

Heat heavy cream in a pot or in the microwave until it's simmering. Pour the cream over chocolate chips and let it sit for about 2 minutes. Seriously, don't touch it. This will ruin it.

When you can't take it any longer, stir the chocolate and cream. The cream will have melted the chocolate a little, and mixing will give it the extra friction to finish melting. At some point, throw a little butter in.

Pour in the Bailey's cream and continue to mix. If the chocolate hasn't melted all the way, stick it in the microwave in short 15 second bursts. When it's finished, the ganache should be shiny and smooth. Stir it occasionally as it cools so it cools evenly.

While the ganache and cake are cooling, whip up some frosting with butter, heavy cream, powdered sugar, a tiny bit of vanilla, and Bailey's cream. Because I was making this for St. Patrick's Day, I added food dye for funsies. (If you're a teetotaler, you can definitely skip the Bailey's in this... but it's just not as tasty!)

Once the cake had cooled, I poured the ganache on top of half the cake and smoothed it out, leaving a little bit of space around the edge so it wouldn't squirt over onto the side of the cake.

I put parchment paper around the edges to catch any frosting spills and crumbs. This is a good trick to having a clean and presentable plate without wiping your finger along the plate (which also works, but this is easy!)

I very gently eased the top half of the cake on top of the ganache and applied a "crumb coat" of frosting.

This catches all the annoying crumbs that get mixed up in your frosting. Applying a second coat of frosting makes the cake look smoother and the colors more vivid. The crumb crust doesn't have to be very thick — it's just there to smooth over the edges before the second coat goes on, much like a paint primer. After the second layer of frosting, I gently pulled the parchment paper out from under the cake and cleaned up any messes I had left around the plate.

I added orange sprinkles around the edges to make it Irish, and added "sláinte" (Gaelic for "health" or "cheers" or whatever you yell when drinking) and a shamrock for extra fun.

We don't have any more glamor shots of the cake because we ate it too quickly, but I can promise you that it's deeply rich, chocolatey, and amazing.

P.S. Remember how my roommate hates cake and sugar in general? Yeah, she loves this cake. A lot. She even texted me to say "that cake is one of the most beautiful things I've ever tasted."

Again, thanks to Annie's Eats for the recipe:

Guinness and chocolate cake with Bailey's buttercream frosting

Ingredients:

For the cake:

1 cup Guinness (or other) stout

1 cup unsalted butter

0.75 cups unsweetened cocoa powder

2 cups flour

2 cups sugar (1 cup brown sugar, 1 cup granulated)

1.5 teaspoons baking soda

0.75 teaspoons salt

2 large eggs

0.66 cups sour cream

1 cup bittersweet chocolate chips

For the ganache:

1 cup bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped

0.66 cups heavy cream

2 tablespoons room temperature butter

2 teaspoons Bailey's Irish cream (or more!)

For the frosting:

1 cup unsalted butter

5 cups powdered sugar

6 tablespoons Bailey's Irish cream

Splash of vanilla

To make:

For the cake:

1. Preheat oven to 350F.

2. Combine the stout and butter in a saucepan over a medium-hot stove and stir until melted.

3. Add the cocoa powder and whisk until combined. Set aside.

4. In a separate bowl, mix the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

5. In a large, separate bowl, beat the eggs and sour cream together until smooth.

6. Pour in the stout, butter, and cocoa mixture and mix it all together.

7. Slowly add the dry ingredients until combined.

8. Add chocolate chips, if adding them.

9. Pour into floured cake pans or papered cupcake tins and bake for 30 minutes (for cake pans) or 17 minutes (for cupcakes), or until a toothpick comes cleanly out of the center.

10. Let stand for 5 minutes, then tip out of the pan and allow to cool on a wire rack.

For the ganache:

1. Heat heavy cream in a pot or in the microwave until it's simmering.

2. Pour the cream over chocolate chips and let it sit for about 2 minutes.

3. Stir the chocolate and cream together to finish melting the chocolate.

4. Add butter and Bailey's. Stir until silky. If the chocolate has not completely melted, microwave it for very short bursts of time.

5. Set aside to cool. If you refrigerate it, stir it occasionally to ensure even cooling.

For the frosting:

1. Beat butter until smooth.

2. Add powdered sugar slowly, alternating with splashes of heavy cream, Bailey's, and vanilla until the frosting reaches the consistency and taste you want.

The birthday cake that wasn't a cake

Folks, my roommate is a quirky one and I love her for it. She owns a shirt with cats and lasers on it. She watches Twin Peaks with me. Her biggest quirk is that she doesn't like cake — which for me, is akin to not enjoy air. So for the most part, she's immune to all the goodies I bribe the rest of my housemates with. When her birthday rolled around, I had to wrack my brain to come up with something sweet (but not too sweet!) to tempt her with. The solution? Zucchini bread, disguised as cake. I opened my Martha Stewart Baking Handbook and set to work grating zucchini.

A couple things for the record:
1. Those are giant zucchini (zucchinis? zucchinum?) and a normal bowl, not a tiny bowl and normal zucchini. This is important because...
2. Those two zucchini gave me two cups of grated zucchini. If you don't have monster-size zucchini, I would use three zucchini, just to make sure you have enough.
3. Grating zucchini is awkward. Do it alone.

I grated the zucchini first so I could make the cake batter all at once. Plus, it's always good to have everything ready beforehand. On that note, I also used a mini Cuisinart to chop walnuts... but I forgot to take a picture of that, so you'll have to take my word for it.

I mixed two kinds of sugars, eggs, and vegetable oil in a big bowl to start the batter.

With that combined, I added baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and flour, along with an eensy sprinkling of nutmeg (because nutmeg can be delicious in small quantities).

Blurry pictures are the best, right guys? Right?

After mixing these ingredients, I pretty much had the consistency of cake batter, but none of the deliciousness of zucchini bread, so then I added the zucchini and walnuts.

This isn't a cake, it's practically a salad.

I floured two cake pans and split the batter between the them. I tried to get a housemate to do a quick taste test before I popped it in the oven, and she said she didn't want to put the batter anywhere near her mouth. She'd soon change her tune, though.

I popped the cakes in the oven and let them bake for an hour and 15 minutes. They weren't quite baked through, so I left them in until I could pull a toothpick out cleanly, then let them cool on a wire rack. (Take them out of the pans when you're able to touch the pans without hurting yourself.)

Hello, gorgeous.

The whole house smelled like cinnamon wholehearted goodiness.

While I waited for the cake to cool, I mixed up some cream cheese frosting in my standing mixer: a cup of cream cheese, a cup of butter, a big splash of vanilla, a big splash of heavy whipping cream, and a few cups of powdered sugar. I can't tell you the exact amount because I basically beat the butter and cream cheese together then add powdered sugar, vanilla, and cream until it looks and tastes "right." I wanted stiffer frosting because it was going on the sides of the cake, so I went with more powdered sugar. Again, the recipe changes every time, but the basic ingredients remain the same.

I held some frosting in reserve and added black food dye to use it for decoration.

When the cake was finally cool, I put one layer on a plate and frosted the top to give the cake a frosting center.

Very, very carefully, I eased the second half of the cake on top of the frosting, trying to keep it from sliding around on top of the newly-frosted first layer.

Using a butter knife, I pushed the frosting over the edge to spread it as smoothly as possible around the sides, then filled in the top. Always start in the middle and go toward the edge when you're frosting.

When the frosting was as smooth as I thought I could make it, I took a toothpick and doodled out my design, inspired by Nedroid's Party Cat comic because a.) it's adorable b.) my roommate loves cats and c.) my roommate is always asking for a party. Boom. Done. (For moms out there: The comic is safe! Click away.)

Then I frosted over the design with the black frosting I made earlier, then used sprinkles to color in the cat's party hat. I even put little (hastily-drawn) cat paws all the way around the edge of the cake.

Et voilà! When we brought the cake out, Roomie screamed so loud I nearly dropped the cake. When we finally got her to stop jumping up and down over how cute it turned out, and then finally persuaded her to slice into the cake and chop up its adorableness, the success continued and she declared the cake delicious. (I'm not even exaggerating here for story-telling purposes. She was really overexcited about a Party Cat cake.) So there you have it, folks. Got someone in your life who doesn't like sweet things? Feed them this cake and it might just change their minds.

Also, Party Cat cake will be in your life.

P.S. Typing this up, I just realized I only put one set of whiskers on the cat. How sad! Maybe someone took off his whiskers off as a prank during a party?

Zucchini Cake or Bread
Ingredients:
2 cups grated zucchini (2 to 3 zucchini worth)
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
3 large eggs
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1.5 teaspoons baking powder
1.5 teaspoons baking soda
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 cup chopped walnuts

To make:
1. Preheat oven to 350F, wash and grate zucchini, and chop walnuts. Set aside.
2. Mix both sugars, vegetable oil, and eggs in a large bowl.
3. Add flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon and mix until thoroughly combined.
4. Add grated zucchini and chopped nuts. Stir.
5. Pour into floured or greased pans (either cake pans or bread loaf pans) and bake for about an hour and 15 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean after poking the cake.
6. Cool on a wire rack.
For the cake:
7. Mix together cream cheese frosting (1 cup cream cheese, 1 cup butter, 1 tablespoon vanilla 1 to 3 tablespoons heavy whipping cream, and about 4 cups powdered sugar).
8. Frost cake and decorate.