Fit For Human Consumption

I think I may have found the cure for my pathological fear of baking. Booze! LL’s birthday was Aug. 27 and per the birthday girl’s request I was charged with making an ice cream cake. In keeping with LL’s tastes I decided on chocolate stout cake for the “cake” layer of the ice cream cake and used a Hobart favorite: Milk Stout. I have to admit I did not make the ice cream myself. I need to log quite a few more hours on the Dixie Bell (our aptly named retro ice cream maker) before I’d venture to include one of my own creations in something as important as a birthday cake. I chickened out in other words and bought Haagen Daz. Vanilla.

As an aside have you ever read the ingredients of most ice creams? I did the other day and it is truly terrifying. The vast majority are most definitely not Fit For Human Consumption. Why on earth are there so many unpronounceable ingredients in them? Having now made our own ice cream I can attest that it’s a refreshingly simple recipe. Cream. Ice. Salt (for melting the ice). Whatever fruits or flavors strike your fancy. In an entire case of ice cream at Whole Foods the ONLY brand that had just ingredients I could identify without a periodic table or a degree in food science was Haagen Daz. Ridiculous.

So ice cream purchased all that remained was the topping. I again relied on a Hobart favorite: bourbon whipped cream. I worried in the days leading up to Laura’s birthday that the stout, chocolate, ice cream, bourbon combo would be overwhelming, that there was too much going on. But if the reports of those who ate the cake are to be believed it all married surprisingly well. The bourbon notes in the vanilla dovetailed nicely with the bourbon whipped cream. And the dense chocolate stout cake seemed to benefit from the cool smooth vanilla flavor of the ice cream. I’m going to try the cake solo for guests this weekend as a comparison, so we’ll see how the recipe does at room temperature with nothing to distract from it. I think the cake definitely benefitted from sitting a day or two. The milk stout gave the chocolate cake an almost sour taste which while not entirely unappealing really mellowed out over time.

I don’t have the attention to detail required for light fluffy baking. Dense, intense flavor I seem to be able to manage. Chocolate stout cake definitely falls into the latter category.

Hobart St. Boozy Birthday Cake

Cake recipe (courtesy of the NYT, adapted from Epicurious)

Butter for pan
1 cup Guinness stout
10 tablespoons (1 stick plus 2 tablespoons) unsalted butter
3/8 cup unsweetened cocoa
2 cups superfine sugar
3/8 cup sour cream
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda


1. For the cake: heat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9-inch springform pan and line with parchment paper. In a large saucepan, combine Guinness and butter. Place over medium-low heat until butter melts, then remove from heat. Add cocoa and superfine sugar, and whisk to blend.

2. In a small bowl, combine sour cream, eggs and vanilla; mix well. Add to Guinness mixture. Add flour and baking soda, and whisk again until smooth. Pour into buttered pan, and bake until risen and firm, 45 minutes to one hour. Place pan on a wire rack and cool completely in pan.

Ice Cream layer:

Allow a container of ice cream, recommended flavor vanilla with bourbon notes, to soften at room temperature. Line an 8 inch spring form pan with plastic wrap. Pour or scoop ice cream into the pan and smooth into an even layer. Freeze until hard.

When hard, put cake layer on top and freeze again. (Note: my intention was to do 2 layers of cake with ice cream in the middle. Using the above cake recipe you would need to double it, the one cake isn’t tall enough to split horizontally. But the single layers of cake and ice cream worked just fine.)

Topping:

1 pint whipping cream, powdered sugar and bourbon to taste (Buffalo Trace worked nicely). Mine was a little too bourbon-y so be careful not to over pour. If there’s a “right” time to add liquid to whipped cream I don’t know what it is-I dump the powdered sugar and the bourbon into the cream in the stand mixer and flip the switch. For topping a cake stiffer whipped cream, practically butter texture, is preferable. It was easier to use as frosting.

Cover cake with whipped cream frosting. For frosting technique I recommend getting lessons as I did over the weekend from a trained cake decorator! I would’ve been a train wreck on my own. (Thanks AM.) Otherwise do the best you can. My philosophy is that taste matters more than aesthetics anyway.

The assembled ice cream cake is best if you allow it all to freeze again. Perhaps even overnight. Day 2 and 3 of LL’s cake outstripped day 1 hands down. The whipped cream sets up more like frosting and the flavors seem to meld better. But if you’re antsy (or like me perpetually running behind) it can be eaten in the ooey gooey stage right after frosting. The flavors are all there.