Crumpet Based Joy

8.30am.   Too early? Check.  Too much beer consumed?  Check.  Way too much gin consumed?  Check.  Weird pink squinty eyes and pale, sweaty skin?  Check and check.  Hangover cure definitely needed.

And what a cure.

The Dea Latis Beers with Breakfast event really is the one thing you need the morning after the night before.  Apart from possibly a very expensive facial.  Twenty or so beery ladies (and one very lucky man) gathered in the lovely surroundings of the Somerstown Coffee House for a talk from Jane Peyton of School of Booze followed by a seven course breakfast with beer matches from Beer Sommelier Annabelle Smith.

The Menu

Not being of a meat eating persuasion I did miss out on a couple of the matches, but happily I still managed to try all the beers....  Of the matches I tried tow really stood out, for differing reasons, and were memorable enough to remain clear through this weekends slightly alcoholic haze.

For me, one match really didn't work - Wells and Youngs Banana Bread Beer with a Banana and Strawberry Smoothie.  The beer was light and delicious, with an aroma of foam banana sweets (in a good way) and the smoothie was thick and luscious and full of wonderful hangover curing things.  However when tasted together the smoothie completely overwhelmed the sweetness of the beer, leaving it tasting unbalanced and bitter.  Not great for me in terms of a match, but the most extreme example of how beer and food can change and influence each other that I've experienced. 

Banana Bread Beer and Strawberry and Banana Smoothie
 

Pancakes with Dark Chocolate Sauce and Blueberries, matched with W&Y Double Chocolate Stout - a much needed sugar boost
 

Although the group chose Eggs Royale with St Austell Clouded Yellow as the best match of the morning my standout favourite was the Welsh Rarebit Crumpets matched with W&Y Bombardier.  It was delicious, and the best post drinking snack I've found.  So good in fact that I recreated it today to clear the last fog following the CAMRGB twissup yesterday.

Felicity Cloake from the Guardian had already done the hard work finding the best Rarebit recipe so swap the toast for crumpets and stout for Bombardier and the jobs a goodun'.  With a glass of Bombardier, ultimate crumpet based joy.

A fantastic way to spend a morning - I can't wait for the next event.

Rock Stars

'Tis December, time of Christmas parties, Christmas drinks, and dull industry awards.  Across the world people are gathering to celebrate the best in Local Business Banking (as I know from my past life), Toner Sales (why isn't it called ink?), Refrigeration Engineering and Beer Writing.  Except beer writing isn't dull, it's brilliant, and thought provoking and exciting, and the British Guild of Beer Writers annual awards bash is one of the highlights if my year.

I was lucky enough to attend this event for the second time on Thursday.  An event where the great and the good of the beer industry gather.  Brewers, writers, bloggers, thinkers.  These people are my rock stars.  

I get just as excited about the chance to talk to a brewer for a while and spend time with beery types as the chance to stand in the front row of a Greenday gig.  That's pretty excited.  I know that's not normal, and will freely admit that my beer geekery may be getting a little out of hand, but it's true.  Sitting in a room with the likes of Roger Protz, Pete Brown, Adrian Tierney-Jones and many others was brilliant, and inspiring.  And listening to speeches about particular writers and the things they had done or written about wasn't dull, it was wonderful.

From a slow start my short blogging life has fizzled and died, one New Years resolution, a total of three posts, it's definitely not setting the world on fire.  On Thursday, sitting surrounded by members if the British Guild of Beer Writers I was inspired to write about something that I (along with them) get excited by.  Beer.  Not to copy, or for praise or acknowledgement (although of course those things wound never be turned down!) but because if I don't put my beery thoughts somewhere they would never be heard (plus my husband will eventually get sick of me wittering on about new hop varieties) and the thing that stuck with me from the other night is that spreading the beery message is a great thing to do, and if I can spread some beery love to just one person, that's pretty cool.

So that's my toe in the beer blogging water, making a tiny ripple rather than a big splash.  But, I hope, a tiny ripple is better than nothing at all.

Gin Cake

That's right. Gin. And Cake. Gin sponge, gin syrup, gin icing - this is boozy baking at it's, well, booziest.

The idea for this bake was sparked by a Facebook comment from my lovely friend (and baking advisor) Nick.

Him: Have you got cake?
Me:  No. I may start getting a complex that you only like me for my baking.....
Him: Baking AND gin.

Hhmmm, there's an idea.  A little research bought up this recipe from How Sweet It Is which has had several rave reviews from cake type bloggers, and here it is, in all it's gin soaked glory.

The cake, which contains a 1/4 cup of gin (60ml)

The glaze, which contains 5 tablespoons of gin.

The icing, which contains 3 tablespoons of gin.

The verdict?  I am drunk on cake.  The house is smells beautifully of sweetness and juniper and I don't mind that the cat is licking gin filled icing off the kitchen floor.  Add a lovely sugar high and it's turning in to a brilliant night.

Spiced Beer Cake with Italian Meringue Buttercream

This cake is the first of my trial bakes to decide what to make for the Great Suffolk Bake Off.  The competition has a Suffolk theme so I am planning to use Suffolk ingredients (as my sugarcraft skills aren't up to creating a cake reincarnation of Southwold Pier) so local flour, butter, milk and eggs are in, but unfortunately coffee, chocolate and citrus are out.

For me the first obvious choice of Suffolk ingredient to try as a star ingredient was beer - according to Suffolk CAMRA the county has 27 breweries.  The limited choice of other ingredients did make the search for a potential recipe a little tricky but I was really inspired by the great recipe from Joy the Baker and the idea of a spiced Broadside cake from The Caked Crusader.  With a few tweaks the recipe for my cake is below:

Spiced beer cake with Italian meringue butter cream

For the cake

Ingredients 

2oz butter (I used lightly salted)
110 g golden caster sugar 
50g dark brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon each of mixed spice, ground ginger and nutmeg (these were the only suitable spices I had in the cupboard - I'm sure ground cloves, cinnamon or similar would work well)
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste (or vanilla extract)
2 eggs
220g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
6 fluid oz beer - I used Adnams Southwold Bitter (this handily gives you a good sized glass of beer left).

Pre-heat the oven to 180 oC and line a 7 inch square or 8 inch round cake tin.

In a stand mixer or with an electric whisk beath together the butter, sugars and spices for 3 minutes.

Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each one.

In a separate bowl mix together the flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda.

Mix the flour and beer in to the butter/sugar mix, alternating between the two.

Pour the mix into the tin and bake for about 45 minutes or until a knife inserted into the middle come out clean.  Then it's on to...

The un-iced cake - would be great on it's own.

The Frosting

Since receiving my KitchenAid I have been itching to try making Italian meringue and this seemed like the perfect excuse.  I used a recipe from Cakelove who have a really handy video with very easy to follow instructions.

Pouring the sugar syrup in to the egg whites was horribly nerve wracking but it felt AMAZING when the egg whites stayed nice and thick and shiny.  The mixture did collapse a bit when I added the butter but it whipped up again quickly and you end up with absolutely loads (I have a full piping bags worth in the freezer).  This recipe calls for 1lb (1LB!) of butter - I'm trying not to think about how much of that I have already consumed.

The Result

The beer makes the cake really moist but it doesn't come across in the flavour as much as I would like.  Next time i'd like to try a beer with more citrussy hops to cut through some of the sweetness.  If I wasn't trying to use Suffolk ingredients I'd add the juice and zest of a lemon to add some freshness.  Husband loves the sweetness but it's a bit much for me.  Not the one for the bake off but worth repeating.

Some Resolutions

At the beginning of each year when other people are busy planning diets, exercise regimes, quitting smoking and polishing CV's I tend to bundle together a slightly more random group of plans for the year. These have varying degrees of success (last years included learning to make meringue - successful; having more manicures - questionable; and setting up a twitter account for FiFi the Fiat - fail).  This year I have decided to blog my progress as well as other projects and adventures which will probably translate as "things I have baked", "things I have drunk" and "places I have drunk them".

Resolutions 2013

Start a blog - here goes

Drink more beers - that's beers rather than beer, although the second could be a happy by-product of the first.

What? More?

Go to The Euston Tap, The Craft Beer Co, a BrewDog bar, The White Horse and The Norwich Tap House - It's all in the name of research.  Honest.

Learn more about Spirits - in an alcoholic sense rather than the ghostly, otherworldly sense. 

Stop buying "plastic" bread - my lovely husband was kind enough to buy me a KitchenAid (christened Nellie) for Christmas so I now have no excuse for spending money on and consuming mass produced naff bread when I could be making and eating yummy home made bread.  This links nicely to.....

Me with beautiful Nellie

Master enriched doughs - following the success of last years "Master Meringues" project, next on the list are enriched doughs - brioche, buns, doughnuts, Danish pastries etc.

Appreciate my surroundings - I'm lucky enough to live in a beautiful part of the world where thousands of people flock every summer - this year I plan to make the most of it (and reduce day dreams of  Westermill Farm to a couple of hours a week).  This should be helped by....

Get out more - not in a get fit way, just in a get off your lazy arse, get out there and see how nice the world is kind of way.  This should also help to counteract the effect of the vast amount of bread products I will be consuming.