If you saw our blog yesterday then you may have noticed an AMAZING looking chocolate cake that we made for our Brew on the Roof Tasting Party. Since we are celebrating cooking together, we wanted to share the recipe for you all to try too! We’ve even included a downloadable recipe card to add to your recipe collection!
Also, don’t forget to enter our giveaway here for your chance to win a $25 Williams-Sonoma Gift Card.
For Cake:
4 ounces unsweetened Ghirardelli chocolate, chopped
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
14 tbs (1 3/4 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/4 cups plus 3 tbsp sugar
3 large eggs, separated into whites and yolks
3/4 cup chocolate stout beer
2/3 cup freshly brewed strong coffee
For Frosting:
1 pound Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate, chopped
2 cups heavy whipping cream
1 teaspoon instant espresso powder
PREPARATION INSTRUCTIONS:
To make cake:
Step 1: Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour two 9-inch diameter cake pans with 1 1/2-inch high sides. Line bottom of each cake pan with parchment paper round; butter and flour parchment. Step 2: Place chopped chocolate in medium metal bowl. Set bowl over saucepan of barely simmering water and stir until chocolate is melted and smooth. Remove bowl from over water and set aside. Step 3: Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in medium bowl to blend. Step 4: Using electric mixer, beat butter and 1 1/4 cups sugar in a large bowl until fluffy and pale yellow, about 2 minutes. Add egg yolks 1 at a time, beating until well blended after each addition. Beat in lukewarm melted chocolate, then stout and coffee. Step 5: Beat flour mixture into chocolate mixture in 2 additions, just until incorporated. Step 6: Using clean, dry beaters, beat egg whites and remaining 3 tablespoons sugar in another medium bowl until stiff but not dry. We found that using an electric hand mixer was easier than using a stand mixer for this step. Step 7: Fold 1/3 of egg whites into cake batter to lighten, then fold in remaining egg whites in 2 additions. Divide batter between prepared cake pans (about 3 cups for each), and smooth the tops. Step 8: Bake cakes until tester inserted into centers comes out clean, about 30 minutes. Transfer cakes to racks and cool in pans 20 minutes. Invert cakes onto racks; remove parchment paper and cool completely.
To make frosting:
Step 1: Place chopped chocolate in medium heatproof bowl. Step 2: Combine whipping cream and espresso powder in medium saucepan. Bring cream mixture to simmer over medium-high heat, whisking occasionally. Step 3: Pour cream mixture over chopped chocolate. Let stand 1 minute, then whisk until chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth. Chill chocolate frosting until slightly thickened and spreadable, stirring occasionally, about 2 hours. Step 4:Using serrated knife, trim rounded tops from both cake layers so that tops are flat. Step 5: Drop 1 1/4 cups frosting by large spoonfuls over top of cake layer; spread frosting evenly to edges with offset spatula or butter knife. Step 6: Top with second cake layer, trimmed side down. Spread remaining frosting evenly over top and sides of cake.
This entire recipe is available for download as a 4×6 inch pdf. Click here to download and add this recipe to your collection. Or pin the photo below!
As you all probably know by now after seeing all of the Ryan Cook’s features on our blog, Ryan is the chef in or family. I love to cook and love to be a part of the process… but I am just not quite talented in the cooking department!
It would be really easy for me to just take advantage of Ryan’s strengths and let him cook me dinner all the time… but I don’t. I can happily say that I am Ryan’s Sous Chef. When Ryan cooks, I am right there by his side to chop or stir (stirring is my favorite! ;) ) or lend a hand wherever I can.
Cooking is not always easy… especially if you are adventurous and like to try difficult recipes. I think any chef would say that they enjoy a little help when whipping up a special meal. Our advice to share today from the Amazing Life Manifesto is to cook together. Enjoy the process- not just the result. This is helpful in so many ways. It makes the job easier for the chef; it provides more time together to soak in life; and cooking together provides a result that you both can celebrate accomplishing together for a good meal or laugh together when it doesn’t exactly turn out as you had expected. It is no longer a chore that has to be done… it is something that you can enjoy doing together!
Happy Sunday! We are so super excited to share this extra special weekend blog post with you all! We absolutely LOVE entertaining and planning fun little parties for our friends. Being able to give our friends and amazing couples a fun date night away from the everyday stresses of life makes our hearts smile.
We are honored and over the moon excited to share that one of our recent parties is featured on Style Me Pretty at Home today! Be sure to jump on over to Style Me Pretty to see the full feature!!! In fact we are so excited we have decided to give away a $25 gift card to Williams-Sonoma to one lucky blog commenter. More details are at the bottom of this post!
One of Ryan’s favorite things about the fall is the amazing assortment of fall beers especially pumpkin flavored beers. This got us thinking about how we could share his love of beer with some of our closets friends. What we came up with was “Brew on the Roof” an evening of beer tasting with friends. We decided to skip the boring old email invitations and created a super fun invite created out of a Williams-Sonoma bottle opener and shredded beer cartons. We even created our own DIY tasting boards out of old barn wood and cooked up some super tasting treats featuring a Ghirardelli Chocolate Stout Cake.
Below are some of our favorite photos from the party. Be sure to check back throughout the week as we will be featuring some super fun DIY Projects and Recipes to help you host your very own couples beer tasting date night!
Be sure to bookmark our blog to learn how to make these “Brew for Two Sampler Packs” for your very own tasting party. We will be featuring step by step instructions later this week.
This chocolate stout cake was heavenly!!! Did we mention the icing was created from Ghirardelli Chocolate and that we would be sharing the recipe on our blog later this week! Plus we will also be including step by step instructions on how to create your very own DIY cake flag banners!
A beer tasting party wouldn’t be complete without mini tasting glasses and DIY tasting boards.
Ok, we might be crazy, but we even created our very own Couple’s Tasting Sheets to match the theme of our party. You can download the tasting sheets here.
Now for the super fun giveaway. One of our favorite stores to get ideas for fun couples date nights is Williams-Sonoma. As we mentioned above, our invitations featured bottle openers from Williams-Sonoma. These were the inspiration for the rest of our tasting party!
Now is your chance to win a $25 gift card to Williams-Sonoma to help inspire your next party. Just leave us a comment below to enter. Double your chances to win by also liking our Facebook page here. The winner will be randomly selected and posted on our Facebook page this Friday!
So I may have graduated with an electrical engineering degree and spent the first 5 years of my professional career designing circuit boards and playing with lasers, but there is just something romantic about using candles for light instead of a lamp. And that brings us to this week’s Friday Favorite.
Friday Favorites – Home Decor: Pottery Barn Hanging Lanterns: Recently, while walking through Pottery Barn we saw a super fun design display with hanging lanterns. We thought a moment and decided hang the two lanterns we already had from our ceiling. One extra hole in our ceiling later a few candles and our Pottery Barn Lanterns have become the perfect addition to our rustic chic styled living room. Happy Friday.
Ok, according to our Facebook friends, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are by far the favorite over Skittles! That tells us that we have some pretty awesome friends! ;) (And for those of you who chose Skittles… we will let it slide this time! ;) But we absolutely recommend that you go have yourself a Reese’s and take in the amazingness! ;) ).
We hope you all had an amazing Halloween yesterday and are now enjoying a continuous sugar high like we are! ;) Last night we celebrated Halloween with some of our favorite photographer friends and it was amazing! Even though the trick-or-treating in CT was postponed due to Sandy, we still dressed up and handed out candy… to each other! ;) Yes, it was pretty much awesome! But, the best part about the evening was sitting in the front lawn watching an outdoor showing of Beetle Juice!… cozy, under a warm blanket, of course! Yes, our friends Justin & Mary KNOW how to celebrate Halloween! ;)
Our J&M Halloween adventure was so much fun for Carl and Ellie! We loved every minute of it! Thanks J&M for having us! ;)
