Reader’s Choice 5: Brown Shugga

Our cheeks are nice and rosy and comfy-cozy…It’s lovely weather for a craft beer together with you…

Yes, I am still in the spirit as I hope you are. How about some Brown Shugga from Lagunitas? Brown Shugga is one of my favorite winter seasonal beers, and as some of you may recall, I lamented its absence last year (the one, and only, good thing about that was it introduced me to Terminal Gravity’s Festivale). So you can imagine I was excited for it to hit the shelves this year and that your votes made it a blog post! Last night I mentioned those sea salt and pink peppercorn caramels that were calling my name…yeah, that’s happening tonight. They’re also made with brown sugar so it should be good (oh, and for the record, I can’t tell you what else in those caramels or I may have to kill you). 

Christmas Eve

Beer & Cookies

Spent my mid-morning baking cookies with my daughter.  Today’s batch was cucciddati, a Sicilian Christmas cookie (recipe here) whose primary ingredient is figs.  They are spectacular cookies, and I make them every year.  I figured it was time for my little one to start participating, as she will be helping out for years to come with this Christmas staple.

Geting busy

Beer and Cupcakes

Probably not the best thing to eat/drink at 10 PM, but what the hell, right?

That title got your attention, didn’t it?  Not much to complain about if you have one of each, right?  Tonight was all about the cupcakes, and it ended up getting me thinking about a beer in the fridge.  Next thing I know, I’m enjoying both.

I’ve been trying to perfect this coconut cake recipe that I tried last week, and I decided to take it down to a cupcake to see if I could get similar results, or possibly a better one.  Cupcakes seem to have the ability to enhance the cake experience for the eater, plus you can pack a shit-ton of flavor into a small delivery system.  I like to hollow mine out and fill them with something “extra”.  This time it is a coconut pastry cream mixed with some whipped cream.  A little coconut buttercream frosting and toasted coconut and these babies are ready for consumption.  While “testing” one of the final coconut cupcakes, I had an epiphany…more like I just realized I had a Ken Schmidt / Maui / Stone Kona Coffee Macadamia Coconut Porter in the garage.  Could there be a better beer to go with a coconut cupcake?  Probably not.  Glad I saved it for a special occasion.