United Bakes of America Round 5...and Root Beer Float Brownies!

Sorry I'm late to the game this month! October just snuck up on me!

and here I am with the round up of bakes that were entered this month with a confession to make...remember how I was baking things from the United Bakes of America book? Wanna know where that book is right now? .... it's in my parents attic, in Shropshire! and it didn't get packed into my suitcase over here as it should have done! but it's probably lucky because squeezing your whole life into 46kg is not an easy task to do! 

So...no more recipes from that book, but the United Bakes challenge will still continue because there is always an American ingredient, recipe or state dish on hand! So for my American bake this month I defaulted back to my number one favourite edible thing to do with America - Root Beer! 

A few months back, Ros of The More Than Occasional Baker, was holidaying around Asia when she stumbled upon some A&W root beer ice cream topper! and being the most amazing blogging friend that she is and knowing of my extreme undying love for A&W she sent me some! 

I have been saving this bottle up for a precious recipe, and yes I did manage to put that in my 46kg of stuff I brought over from England!

and so I present to you Root Beer Float Brownies - an A&W infused brownie topped with vanilla bean frosting (to represent the ice cream part in a float) and finished off with a drizzle of that delicious A&W sauce! 

Root Beer Float Brownies:
Serves 18
From Cookies and Cups

2/3 cup plain flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
6 oz chopped semi sweet chocolate
3 oz white chocolate
4 tbsp unsalted butter
3 large eggs
1/2 cup caster sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
8 oz root beer (I used A&W)
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Line a 15 x 8" baking dish with parchment paper and grease lightly with butter.
Sift flour, cocoa powder and salt in a bowl and set aside.
Over a double boiler (or in a microwave) melt the butter, semi sweet and white chocolates together.
Remove from the heat when just melted and allow to cool for 5 minutes.
Using your mixer (sob..or if your Kitchen Aid is back in England, using a spoon!) mix the eggs, sugar and vanilla together.
Slowly add in the cooled chocolate mixture.  
Now add half the flour and half the root beer.  Mix on low, scraping the sides in between.
Repeat with the remaining flour and root beer until just combined.  The batter will look quite thin.
Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 20-25 minutes, until center is just set.  I checked mine at 22 minutes and they were still gooey, when I checked at 25 no crumbs came out attached to the knife and they had baked too much and were cake like texture! so depending on your oven, definitely check them around the 20 minutes mark as you don't want brownies like mine!
Let cool completely before frosting.

Vanilla Bean Frosting:
Makes enough to just frost the above, if you want a thicker layer of frosting make a bigger batch.
Adapted from Cupcake Project

2 cups icing sugar
1 cup unsalted butter
2 tsp vanilla bean paste
1 tbsp semi skimmed milk

Mix together sugar and butter until they are blended and creamy.
Add vanilla bean paste and milk and continue to beat for another minute.
If desired, add more icing sugar to make it stiffer.

Frost brownies using a palette knife and then drizzle with the A&W sauce.



On a side note , while making these I realised I had no weighing scales as here in Canada I'm hoping I can just rely on my measuring cups! but then I realised I had no way to measure 6 oz of chocolate from the slab I had bought.  So imagine my delight when I opened up the 225g box to find 8 little squares of individually wrapped chocolate.  1 square = 1 ounce! Problem solved.  

Now let's get on to the other inventive bakes that were entered this month! 

First off the mark was my proud to be a Texan friend, Chandrie.  We met whilst living in North Wales last year and I bonded with her instantly, because after all she was American and I love all things American! She assured me that when she went back home to the States this summer that she would join along with the challenge and true to her word she came up with these Texas-Hot Habanero Cookies! One of the ingredients, aside from chopped up Habanero chillies and choc chips is 'Dave's Insanity Hot Sauce'! I'm not sure I would be brave enough to try these but they'd certainly spice up any event you took them along to! 

Next up, my ever faithful challenge enterer and sender of yummy treats, Ros from The More Than Occasional Baker baked up this oh so delicious looking Peanut Butter Banana Bread. Although we can't agree over a love for coconut, we definitely have lots of other tastebuds in common and I had whipped up a Reese's peanut butter banana bread earlier in the month too - great minds think alike! 

Caroline Makes made these super cute Puppy Dog Cupcakes from the American book 'Hello Cupcake'.    She also used tons of American ingredients that she was able to pick up on her oh so exciting American road trip she went on recently, I'm so jealous! She grabbed some pumpkin marshmallows, chocolate wafers and a Betty Crocker chocolate cake mix that helped her whip these up! 

Finally, my sister Mel managed to sneak these Cookies and Cream Brownies in.  It's a Lorraine Pascale recipe that I have had bookmarked for a while too but she beat me to it! Us Jones girls are HUGE Oreo lovers! I could seriously do with one of these right now, and I love the polka dot plate too! 

So there we have it, I'm hoping that now we're full into 'Fall' season as everyone calls it here that there will be plenty of Halloween/Thanksgiving/Pumpkin/Apple bakes coming up this month and I hope if you are the baker that is whipping them up then you will come and join up to the UBA challenge because we'd love to have you!

Until next time...happy baking! and blogging!

Bundt loving...Root Beer style!

These pictures were not taken on my SLR which made me not even want to do this post! nor were any pretty cake stands involved and Bundts deserve to be displayed on beautiful cake stands! and yes, I'm pretty sure you can see a tube of facewash and a bag of coppers in one of the pictures - whoops! but you see I did decide to blog about in the end...and the reason is because it was the tastiest most delicious thing ever and I could not wait 10 seconds longer to take some facewash out of the background of the shot because my tastedbuds could not hang on any longer! the smell of baked root beer goodness was overwhelming and all blogging sense went out the window!!

So without further ado I present to you the Root Beer Bundt cake.  For my birthday I received a bundt cake tin.  It was the first bundt tin I've ever had and so I spent weeks deciding what type of bundt cake to make because it's maiden voyage had to be a special and delicious one! I had settled on an Oreo one but then in last month's Food Network Magazine we came across this recipe and there was no question in my mind...other than how soon can I get my hands on some root beer! so after work that night we popped to Outsider Tart to pick up a bottle and that settled it!

It was a good thing we bought such a large bottle because there was definitely more going into our mouths than into the bowl...and that says alot, because this recipe is packed with root beer! Once upon a time I made some root beer float cupcakes, at the time I fell in love with the vanilla bean frosting that tasted just like a melted dollop of ice cream but I remember wishing the root beer taste in the cupcake had been stronger.  I certainly didn't have that problem this time around.  There is root beer in the cake mix, when the cake comes out the oven you poke it and pour on yet more root beer and soak the cake completely in pure A&W heaven. Once you've done that you even add some to the glaze and then just for fun...and extreme tastiness we threw an extra teaspoon or root beer extract in as well!

The results were incredible! I know mine's not exactly aesthetically pleasing but it tasted delicous and it stayed moist for days afterwards.  If you're a root beer lover then I'm telling you - you have to make this cake! If you're not a root beer lover then why not?! get involved!

Root Beer Bundt Cake:

From Food Network

1 stick unsalted butter, plus more for the pan

2 cups plain flour, plus more for dusting

2 1/2 cups root beer

1 cup cocoa powder

2oz/56g plain chocolate, chopped

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar

1 1/4 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda

1/2 teaspoon ground allspice

1 teaspoon salt, plus a pinch

3 large eggs, beaten

2 1/2 cups icing sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method:

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees C. 

Butter and flour a 12-cup Bundt pan; tap out the excess flour.

Heat 2 cups root beer, the cocoa powder, chocolate and 1 stick butter in a large saucepan over medium heat until the butter melts. Add the granulated and brown sugars and whisk until dissolved. Remove from the heat and let cool.

Combine 2 cups flour, the bicarbonate of soda, allspice and 1 teaspoon salt in a bowl. Whisk the eggs into the root beer mixture, then gently fold in the dry ingredients (the batter will be slightly lumpy).

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean, 55 minutes to 1 hour, rotating the pan halfway through. Transfer to a rack. Gently poke the cake all over with a skewer and pour 1/4 cup root beer over the cake; let cool in the pan for 20 minutes, then invert the cake onto a serving plate and let cool completely.

Meanwhile, make the glaze: Whisk the remaining 1/4 cup root beer, a pinch of salt, the icing sugar and vanilla in a bowl until smooth. Drizzle over the cake.

The Root Beer Float Cupcake - a high point of American gastronomic inventiveness!

Two posts in one day! Aren't you the lucky ones! I've been wanting to make Root Beer cupcakes for aaaaaages! and decided it was finally time! plus I knew if I left that little can of A&W in my cupboard for any longer I would lose all will power and drink it.

The recipe I used was actually for a root beer bundt cake but I just made it in cupcake cases instead (that were a gift from a lovely cupcake loving friend!)  The recipe they had used called for Root Beer chocolate fudge frosting which did look amazing but I was in the mood for more of a 'Root Beer Float' and so I opted for vanilla frosting.  In the picture above I had used an ice cream scoop to dollop the frosting on top to try and make it look more authentic! I even ordered some little Root Beer barrel candy's from American Ebay for the occasion, and I crushed these up and sprinkled them on top. For the mini ones I made I decided to leave the complete barrel on top, aren't they cute!

 

I need you to know that these cupcakes weren't just good, they weren't even very good, they were absolutely fantastically amazing!!! Seriously, I can't remember the last time I ate something so delicious! and there's a secret ingredient that made all this happen...not the Root Beer, although that is obviously one of the key players that makes it so tasty, but oh no there's something far more special but I can't share it with you just yet.  

I hate to keep you in suspense, but it will have to wait until after Monday, as I plan to use it for my Iron Cupcake entry! and I can't be sure who is reading so all will be revealed next week! For now I leave you with these pictures...drool at your discretion

These are my inspired cupcake pedestals! It was actually A&W that I used in my cupcakes, the various root beer bottles in the background of the previous pictures are from my Root Beer bottle collection! Yes you heard right, I have a Root Beer bottle collection...I'm rather proud of it, most of those have survived coming across the Atlantic and being smuggled into a handbag once upon a time!

Root Beer Float Cupcakes:

Makes 24

From Baked Perfection

2 cups root beer

1 cup cocoa powder

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch pieces

1 1/4 cups caster sugar

1/2 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar

2 cups plain flour

1 1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp salt

2 large eggs

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. 

In a small saucepan, heat the root beer, cocoa powder, and butter over medium heat until the butter is melted. Add the sugars and whisk until dissolved. Remove from heat and let cool.

In a large bowl, whisk the flour, bicarbonate of soda, and salt together.

In a small bowl, whisk the eggs until just beaten, then whisk them into the cooled cocoa mixture until combined. Gently fold the flour mixture into the cocoa mixture. The batter will be slightly lumpy—do not overbeat, as it could cause the cupcakes to be tough.

Pour the batter into the cupcake liners and bake for 20-25 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through the baking time, until a small knife (or toothpick) comes out clean.

Now the surprise is over! here is what I used for the frosting!!

Vanilla Bean Buttercream Frosting (A.K.A Melted Ice Cream):

Makes enough to frost 24 cupcakes

From Cupcake Project

4 cups icing sugar

2 cups unsalted butter, at room temperature

4 teaspoons vanilla bean paste 

2 tablespoons milk

Mix together half the sugar and butter until they are blended and creamy.  Add the remaining sugar, I divide it in half so as not to have an icing sugar explosion. Add vanilla bean paste and milk and continue to beat for another minute.  If desired, add more vanilla bean paste to taste, or more icing sugar to make it stiffer.