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RECIPE: Oakshire Overcast (espresso stout) Chocolate Pudding
Cooking with wine is common place. What should also go hand-in-hand with cooking and foodies… craft beer. There are many styles out there and many different types of dishes that you can make anything from appetizers to entrees to desserts. Earlier in January, I invited some friends over for a five-year Deschutes’ Abyss vertical tasting (2007-2011). We had pita & hummus, brie and bleu cheeses, honey & pear pizzas, and more. I also made some dark chocolate pudding with the use of one of my favorite beers from Eugene, Oregon…
Oakshire Overcast (espresso stout)
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Chocolate Pudding
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Ingredients:
makes about ten 6 oz. servings
- 1 cup milk, or soy/rice/almond/hemp/coconut milk alternative
- 5 Tbl cornstarch
——— - 1 1/2 cup (12 oz) Oakshire Brewing Overcast espresso stout (or another stout/porter)
- 1 can (14 oz) coconut milk + 1/4 cup (2 oz) regular milk/rice/soy/etc milk alternative
- 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips (or 4 to 5 oz in chopped up chocolate bars)
- 1 cup sugar (I used 3/4 white, 1/4 dark brown)
- 1 tsp sea salt
- pinch ground nutmeg
——— - 3 tsp vanilla extract
Ingredient Notes: slideshow below shows component detail
- There is a total of 4.5 cups of liquid. If you choose against using a can of coconut milk (usually 14 oz), you can use heavy cream or whipping cream in its place (you need something thicker than normal milk).
- I opted for the candy bar route. I got some fancy chocolate bars and chopped them with a knife to aide in their melting quicker. I used a full 3.5 oz (100g) extra dark chocolate bar from Panama (80% cacao) and about a 1/4 of a 3oz (~22g) milk chocolate bar. You can choose whatever style of chocolate that you like. About 4.25 oz (~122g) of chopped chocolate bars was 1 cup in a measuring cup. When making this again, I will likely opt for a higher milk chocolate mix… the pudding turned out great, but the 80% dark definitely made it more on the bittersweet side.
Steps:
- Whisk together 1 cup milk and cornstarch in a small bowl. Set aside.
- Combine craft beer, coconut milk, additional milk, cocoa, chocolate chips, sugar, salt, and nutmeg into a large saucepan. Warm over medium heat until chocolate chips have melted.
- Whisk in cornstarch mixture and cook for 15 minutes over medium-low heat or until pudding thickens* and begins to boil.
- Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.
- Cover and chill well before serving (4-6 hours, or overnight).
- Stir again prior to serving. Enjoy!
*Prep Note: If you double the recipe, you need to heat it longer… you don’t want to apply extra heat to do it quicker… it may not thicken properly/consistently.
Photo Slideshow:
The above pudding recipe would work great for a get together… say, the Super Bowl, or even just a nice dinner party. It’s a very versatile dessert. This is a mainly music-based blog. If you stumbled in on a recipe search, check out my other recipes at THIS LINK. For specific “cooking with beer” links, go here:
- Flat Tail Pumpkin Stout Tiramisu
- Framboise Cranberry Relish
- Blue Moon orange sherbet float
- Oakshire espresso stout float
~Dan – np: John Zorn – Mount Analogue
Peanut Butter Chocolate Oatmeal Stout
So, this can’t be passed up… I first heard about it via Samurai Artist‘s tweets, and now the photo walk-through of the brewing of the monsterous Peanut Butter Chocolate Oatmeal Stout at Coalition Brewing. Check out the rest of the pictures and narrative over at the New School blog:
Go HERE for the full walk-through.
The plan is for it to be ready for Portland’s Night of the Living Ales – 1st Annual SE 28th Street pubcrawl on Halloween (Oct 31st, 2010). I won’t be able to make it; so I may have to try to brew this PB beer myself… eventually. Maybe for next year’s Cascade Brewer’s Society “weird ingredient” club competition. It also gave me the idea for a peanut-infused vodka (or possibly peanut butter-infused vodka) for a chocolate cocktail.
~Dan – np: Sufjan Stevens – The Age of Adz 
RECIPE: Creamy Vegan Chocolate Pudding
Vegan Chocolate Pudding
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(photo courtesy of foodgawker)
This weekend will be a double-whammy recipe post (cute olive penguins this evening). Yesterday I made homemade vegan chocolate pudding for today’s Vegetarian Supper Club in Eugene, OR. It wasn’t too hard… and my taste test last night was delicious. It is adapted from the January 2007 issue of Vegetarian Times. (They also used instant decaf coffee as an ingredient).
Ingredients:
makes four 6 oz. servings
- 2 cups plain soy milk/rice milk/coconut milk, divided
- 2 Tbl cornstarch
- 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1/4 cup vegan semisweet chocolate chips (or regular chocolate chips if not strictly vegan)
- 3 Tbl sugar
- pinch ground nutmeg
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Steps:
- Whisk together 1/2 cup soymilk and cornstarch in a small bowl. Set aside.
- Combine remaining 1.5 cups soymilk, cocoa, chocolate chips, sugar, and nutmeg into a large saucepan. Warm over medium heat until chocolate chips have melted.
- Whisk in cornstarch mixture and cook for 10 minutes over medium-low heat or until pudding thickens* and begins to boil.
- Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.
- Divide pudding among 4 custard cups and chill well before serving.
- Enjoy!
*NOTE: If you double the recipe (or quadruple, like I did), you need to heat it longer… it took mine about 40 minutes instead of the above prescribed 10 minutes… you don’t want to apply extra heat to do it quicker… it may not thicken properly/consistently.
Info for the dieters… each serving is approximately 150 calories, 5 grams of protein, 5 grams fat, and 25 grams carbs. I kept my version to 5 ingredients (for a challenge imposed by the dinner theme) and used sweetened dark chocolate chips and didn’t add the extra sugar, not much different outcome in flavor or consistency.
This is a mainly music-based blog. If you stumbled in on a recipe search, check out my other recipes, like vegan biscuits & gravy, spiced biscotti, vegan cactus chili, vegan bananas foster, mushroom dumpling stew, strawberry cornbread muffins, fruit spring rolls, grilled coconut-rum pineapple, vegetarian s’mores pouches, and pumpkin-infused vodka cocktail at THIS LINK.
~Dan – np: David Gould – Adonai in Dub
RECIPE: Easy S’mores Pouches
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Easy S’mores Pouches
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So, as many vegetarians know, marshmallows are not vegetarian due to the use of gelatin. Well, for this month’s Vegetarian Supper Club in Eugene, OR, I attempted to make homemade vegetarian marshmallows. I used a recipe (that shan’t be linked to), followed it to the letter… and failed. I mean, it tasted like marshmallows, but it never solidified and was basically unusable sugar-goop. Oh well. However, I had a backup plan for my s’mores pouches: marshmallow fluff…
Ingredients:
serves however many (i.e.- it’s easily scalable)
- puff pastry shells, phyllo dough… or crescent rolls (i.e.- the easy route that I took due to expediency, 1 canister of crescent rolls = 4 pouches)
- chocolate chips (any variety you like… 20 chips / pouch)
- marshmallow fluff (the standard 7 oz. jar = 8 pouches)
- graham crackers (any variety you like, 1 large cracker = 4 pouches)
- cookware: a muffin pan… or two.
Directions (see assembly pictures below):
- Preheat oven to 375° F.
- Combine two (2) crescent roll triangles into one ball, roll out into a flat floured area. Place inside greased muffin pan (I made about 8 in each 12-slotted muffin pan).
- Add crumbled up 1/4 graham cracker
- Add roughly 20 chocolate chips per pouch.
- Add 2-3 Tbl of marshmallow fluff per pouch and close up / twist them off at the top.
- Cook for 15-17 minutes or until brown (a little bit more than the crescent roll recipe to ensure cooking throughout). If you use puff pastry shells or phyllo dough, your cooking time and temperature will likely vary.
- The pouches tend to open up exposing the marshmallow. If you don’t want this to happen, figure something out for step 5… I didn’t mind them opening up a little bit.
- Let cool… and enjoy!
For a variation, if you have a crème brûlée torch, you could toast the marshmallow fluff a bit after cooking in the oven… yum!
For the calorie counters… it’s about 400 calories, 15g fat, 60g carbs, and 4g protein. Um… it’s a dessert; so, yeah… hit the elliptical for 40 minutes to offset it completely. :)
This is a mainly music-based blog. If you stumbled in on a recipe search, check out my other recipes, like vegan biscuits & gravy, spiced biscotti, vegan cactus chili, vegan bananas foster, mushroom dumpling stew, strawberry cornbread muffins, fruit spring rolls, and grilled coconut-rum pineapple at THIS LINK.
~Dan – np: Sufjan Stevens – The BQE
creme brulee
Nib in Eugene
Wow… we went to a chocolate tasting last night at the newly opened NIB dessert and wine bar in Eugene, OR. It’s on Monroe, just south of 7th (by Sweet Life, Laughing Planet, etc). It’s owned and operated by a husband and wife team who has been behind the KeKau Chocolatier deliciousness seen around town for the past few years at various restaurants.
We started the night with quite possibly the most delicious cheese plate ever. It was very gorgeous, well crafted, and… YUMMY. It was nine month Dolaner Gouda (cow’s milk), Bellweather ricotta (cow’s milk) with Meyer lemon curd, and Humbolt Fog, Cypress Grove chevre (goat’s milk). Accompanying it was this odd, but tasty, encapsulated orange sauce over toasted nuts (hazelnuts, perhaps). There were also thinly sliced apples & pears, diced winter squash, and these sugared crackers that were absolutely fabulous. I think my favorite cheese was the gouda, but it was all quite AMAZING. My wife and I paired it with Navarro Vineyards Gewuerztraminer grape juice and a 2005 Abacela Malbec.
The chocolate tasting started at 7pm, and it was very informational. The husband side of the mom & pop run wine bar, Shane Tracey, came out and told us about each chocolate before the pieces came around. It was very informative, and I started writing stuff down, but gave up early on… We tasted 6-7 chocolates, I believe. Our table was at the end of the pass along; so the chocolates stopped at our table. Darn… we could nab extra nibs. :)
The first was a delicious white chocolate, which was high in cocoa butter content. We usually don’t like white chocolates, but it was quite good. Next up was a milk chocolate (or two). Then we had a spicy darker chocolate (this one was my favorite). We had a creamier dark chocolate that, no lie, had heavy hints of banana up front with a pineapple finish. We rounded out the tasting with a 70% chocolate, which is more of what my wife and I usually get from Trader Joe’s. The final chocolate was also a dark, but I don’t remember the % of solids. I paired my tasting with a 2003 Chateau Les Justices Sauternes.
At the end of the tastings, we bought a 2 Bite Holiday which was a small and delicious chocolate mousse with (if I remember correctly) some caramel, candied ginger, white chocolate shavings on a (fancy) graham cracker. We also bought some of their truffles to take home: Habañero Tequila, Thai Curry, Kalamansi Coconut, Spiced Berry, and maybe one other that I don’t see on their website right now.
NIB dessert & wine bar is a GREAT place. They have many great desserts, a great wine selection (white, red, dessert), and their cheese plate is amazing. They also do brunch on Sundays (and on New Year’s Day from 12am to 3am!!).
Eugene, Oregon… it is now your duty to support this amazing new place!!! Go forth and be delighted!!
~Dan – np: Miles Davis – On the Corner
-Eyvind Kang
-Frank Zappa
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