St Pattys Day

I love all holidays.... so naturally, St Patrick's day is no exception.

This year I decided to try a new recipe--the chocolate stout cake.  I saw it on Epicurious when I was looking up cakes a couple weeks ago and the awesome reviews sold me on it.

Chocolate Stout Cake
It started out cooking up some Guinness and butter....

 

 I made only half the recipe because I only have two 8 inch pans and it made just the right amount!  

Final product!

The reviews on the website weren't too positive about the icing in the recipe so I went my own direction entirely.  I made a buttercream frosting and added Baileys Irish Cream to it instead of water for the filling.  Then for the outside coat, I melted chopped dark chocolate with some shortening and a little milk and poured it over the cake creating a semi-hard shell.  Then piped buttercream borders and a shamrock ;)

Overall I would say it was a hit!  We headed out to the brewery and gave the cake out to our friends and a couple strangers.  A piece made its way to one of the bartenders and I got hooked up with free beer and lots of compliments throughout the night.

I've been trying to convince myself for a while not to try brand new recipes on "the day of" but this one definitely worked out even with my crazy substitutions! 

We actually had our Irish dinner tonight since last night we ...errrr.... didn't get around to it and I made vegetable pot pie (my recipe is fill the pan I want to use with raw veggies, then cook them up, and add a pie crust) and the Twice Baked Potatoes I made last year which are really super good.  I meant to take a picture of them but I ate them before I remembered--whoops!

Hope everyone had a great night!