Sugar High Friday - Liquors

I love cooking with liquors! And I'll be doing just that for Sugar High Fridays. Yes, I'm joining another food blogging event. The theme this month is "Liquors", hosted by Chandra of Lick The Spoon. Sugar High Fridays was started by Jennifer of Domestic Goddess who chooses the host for this monthly event. Joining these events gives me the chance to try out recipes from my embarrassingly large library of cookbooks. Embarrassing because I haven't used most of the books. I read them like novels and off they go to the bookshelf never to be opened again. So here I give them new life.

I'll be baking a Guinness Stout Ginger Cake from the book The Last Course by Claudia Fleming and Melissa Clark. I used San Miguel Cerveza Negra instead of Guinness Stout because I couldn't find any at the grocery. So this should actually be called Cerveza Negra Ginger Cake. Cerveza Negra is Spanish for dark beer.

I used virgin coconut oil for this recipe because I thought the flavor of coconut would go well with the spices and ginger. The cake turned out really well and the smells emanating from the kitchen while it was baking... well, you know what I'm talking about.

One thing I would change when I make this cake again is to use a nonstick baking pan and forgo buttering and dusting the loaf pan with flour. The cake had streaks and patches of flour when I turned it over a serving plate. Although, it did not affect the flavor of the cake it didn't look appetizing.



Cerveza Negra Ginger Cake

1 cup Cerveza Negra
1 cup molasses
1/2 tbsp baking soda
3 large eggs
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup muscovado sugar or brown sugar
3/4 cup virgin coconut oil or grapeseed oil or vegetable oil
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tbsp ground ginger
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp grated nutmeg
1/8 tsp ground cardamom
1 tbsp grated, peeled fresh gingerroot

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Butter and flour a loaf pan or bundt pan.

Pour beer and molasses in a large saucepan. Make sure its large because the mixture will foam up and spill over. Bring it to a boil. Remove from heat and add the baking soda. This mixture will foam up again after adding the baking soda so I can't stress enough using a large pan to do this in.

Whisk flour, ground ginger, baking powder, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and cardamom together in a bowl.

Whisk the eggs and sugars together in another bowl. Add oil and whisk until well combined.

Pour the egg mixture into the beer mixture and whisk well.

Pour half of the liquid mixture into the bowl of dry ingredients and whisk thoroughly. It will get stiff, continue whisking until its well combined. Pour in the rest of the liquid mixture and slowly whisk to combine.

Pour batter into prepared loaf or bundt pan and bake in preheated oven for 1 hour.

I served slices of this cake with dulce de leche ice cream.