Week 1: Cappuccino Stout Brownies and Winter Shortcakes

After settling upon a baking schedule, making a list of things that must be tried and/or repeated, and procuring some appropriate notebooks for documentation (oh lab notebooks, how I have missed you), I decided to start things off with an old standby: beer brownies. This is a veteran go-to bake, and very popular with the ultimate teammates and co-workers. Who wouldn't like a dense fudgy brownie made of beer and three types of chocolate?! I like to mix up the beer options and, for this batch, decided on some Lagunitas cappuccino stout that we had sitting around. No complaints from the tasting panel, however this batch was a little fudgier than usual (maybe because of the pan option).

Shortcakes in the winter? Yes, please!
Having bolstered my confidence, I then dove in and put together some winter shortcakes with buttermilk biscuits from Wintersweet. What a terrific recipe! The dried fruit compote is definitely a winner and we had leftover compote with Greek yogurt for days. The buttermilk biscuits were a little over which was ok in this case since it sopped up the great flavors of the compote as well as the maple creme fraiche topping. Of course I used the square biscuit cutters because more edges = better. (Note: I'm definitely a crunchy crust fan). Overall, a great first training week with a reasonable amount of skills in a rustic, composed dessert to ease into things.
Buttermilk biscuits - a smidge overdone.

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