As an American with Irish heritage, especially after connecting with that heritage through traveling the Emerald Isle and meeting relatives, St. Patrick’s Day is a holiday I can’t pass up!
The best way to celebrate here is to have some craic – good food, good drinks, and good music.
smaragdine (adj): of or pertaining to emerald; resembling emerald; of an emerald green color
I haven’t made dessert in ages, so I whipped up a chocolate Guinness cake in time for a visit from Matthew and April. Like me, April loves chocolate, so I knew this would be the perfect bake in anticipation of the holiday.
It uses a whole cup of Guinness, which helps to keep the bread moist. It also makes it dense, rich, and malty. And because beer contains yeast, it amplified the cake’s rise (but it then sunk 😕) – the batter was bubbling before it even went in the oven!
The cake also called for malted milk powder, made from malted barley, an ingredient I’ve never used. The dried milk is mixed with bicarb, so it acts as a rising agent as well as a sweetener. It also enchanters the malt flavor of the beer. Now I’m on a search for other ways to use up the malted milk powder…
I topped the cake with buttercream, made with Irish butter of course! Though, to be honest, that made it a bit too rich. 🙃 The recipe suggests using Bailey’s in the icing, but I didn’t want to add that to our grocery bill, so I stuck with vanilla.
The cake was an absolute hit and made the top three of the best chocolate cakes I’ve ever eaten. Beaten only by Mom’s chocolate chip cake and followed by a chocolate cake I ate in Turkey. Would definitely make it again!
Since I’m saving the rest of the Guinness for a batch of stew later on and maybe some soda bread as well, we pulled out our last bottle of Listoke gin. It is so good! My second go at flavoring the gin turned out way better than my first. This time, it pairs well with tonic water and is enhanced with an orange peel garnish.
And finally, for the music, we caught a performance of Ímar, a folk band from the British Isles. We saw them at the Fleadh in Mullingar in 2022, and it was such a joy to see them again here. Such a privilege, too. And like last time, their performance blew us away! They had us tapping, clapping, and laughing along for a whole hour. And to my extreme delight, they ended with their rendition of “Be Thou.” Ugh. So good.
But more than anything else this year, we’re missing our friends in Ireland and all the experiences we had there. Can’t wait to go back!
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