“If you wouldn’t drink it, then you shouldn’t cook with it.” That’s the mantra for cooking with wine. But emptying a bloody good bottle of Rioja into the casserole feels wrong to me. Isn’t that what the stuff on the bottom supermarket shelf is for? Or the dodgy bottle you won in a Christmas raffle?
On the other hand, some recipes deserve the best booze you can find. Take CLB’s Chocolate and Porter cake.
Back in the early summer, Chief Beer Officer Nick was perfecting the Cotswold Porter – the luscious and punchy dark ale we launched last month to rave reviews. We often discuss possible other uses of our beer and its by-products. Could we turn the spent grain (or "draff") into dog biscuits or even granola? Watch this space.
But inspired by the more commonly seen Guinness and Chocolate cake, a screamingly brilliant idea was to see just how gorgeous a cake could be that was made with our Cotswold Porter.
Cue Nick’s better half, Kate, who had endured months of her kitchen being commandeered to chop up bread for our beer and is an ace baker. She took a bottle of our porter, disappeared into the kitchen and came up with this cracking recipe.
Ingredients for the cake:
For the icing:
Pre-heat oven to 180⁰C/160⁰C fan. Grease and line two 20cm sandwich tins. Cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Beat eggs with vanilla essence then gradually beat into the butter/sugar mix. In a separate bowl, stir Cotswold Porter into cocoa until smooth. In another bowl, sift flour, baking powder and bicarb. In turn, fold a little of the flour mix and then the cocoa mix into the egg mix until combined. Equally divide mixture into tins and bake for 30-35 mins. Leave to cool for 5 mins in the tin before turning out onto a cooling rack.
For the icing, beat icing sugar with soft butter, then gradually add Cotswold Porter and mix well. Fold in melted chocolate and leave mixture to set until spreadable. Use half the icing to sandwich the cake and the other half to decorate the top.
Yes, you’re going to get sick of Christmas Cake, Stollen and mince pies over the next couple of weeks. But once that’s gone, get hold of some CLB Porter and give this a go. It’s great.
