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Monday, October 26, 2009
Beer at the heart of potluck, Eat-Up
Beer isn’t just for drinking.
Two events in the past week prove that beer is just as valuable as an ingredient as a beverage.
On Thursday, blogger and baker extraordinaire Jennie Chen taught members of Addie’s Eat-Ups, the monthly food meet-up group, about how to bake with beer.
Her cupcakes, such as these made from Wells Banana Bread Beer, and other sweet treats, including 512 Pecan Porter mousse, Live Oak Hefeweizen and the Brooklyn Brewery Pumpkin Ale Chocolate Cake she served at the Eat-Up, have gained her a bit of a cult following in Austin.
But baking with beer isn’t as simple as swapping beer for liquid in whatever you’re making. She says that through trial and plenty of error, she’s discovered that very hoppy beers often turn bitter when cooked for a long time and that bubbly beer can cause batters or doughs to break.
Lucky for us, she is generous with recipes. You can find plenty of them on her blog, MisoHungry Makes it with Moonshine.
On Sunday, Austin food bloggers gathered for our fourth potluck, this time at (512) Brewing Company. Keeping with the beer theme this fall, the dishes were supposed to be made with beer. I created Thomas Keller’s roasted cauliflower with rice, the recipe for which we printed in the paper a few weeks ago. I replaced some of the cooking water with Real Ale’s Brewhouse Brown Ale.
Chicken thighs cooked in beer from Michael Chu of Cooking for Engineers, chicken pot pie topped with biscuits from Lisa Lawless and these little tartlets from Teddy Babcock.
On the dessert side, we had everything from beeramisu from Cecilia Nasti to pumpkin beer ice cream from Stephanie McClenny.
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