Blog Swap-Cookes and beer!

One of the coolest people I know, Ben from Ben Likes Beer came up with a brilliant idea the other day (or should I say month since I'm a procrastinator and waited forever to start on this). That idea was to do a sort of hybrid blog post swap where we each give each other an inspirational piece of work. Since Ben is the resident beer connoisseur and I am the resident baker, we are swapping concepts and creative direction.

I have provided Ben with a recipe for "Spiced Bourbon Apple Pie" I was convinced that the warm, spicy deliciousness of this pie would allow Ben to have a fun time finding a beer to compliment. Also, remember how I said Ben was a genius? Well, I'm sure I could've provided him a recipe consisting of celery stalks, cinnamon and cumin and he would've found a beer to pair it with.

Whether you drink beer, sip on wine, or prefer your adult beverages in the form of a flaming neon shot, I urge you to visit Ben's blog where you can see his hilarious, sharp wit and understand clearly why everyone just adores him so much.

The fantastic post he did with the Spiced Bourbon Apple Pie is here.

Is it just me or is he too good at stuff?

For my part of this fantastical swap, Ben has given me Dogfish Head's-Theobroma.

and mmm mmm mm is it delicious. I of course could not give an appropriate review of this beer since I would certainly do it an injustice, but I can tell you that Ben described it to me as a "spicy chipotle coffee/chocolate beer."  Boy do I love nothing more than chocolate. Except for bunnies maybe, and sunny days of course. But I'm sure you already knew that.

So this spicy, chocolaty concoction was a beautiful beer to sip after dinner and enjoy. Also, I don't know if perhaps I drank a bit too much of the Theobroma but for some reason I took terrible pictures that did not do it justice. I was going for that whole Beer commercial slow poured ice goodness but it turned out like one of those grainy pictures from a child's Fisher Price plastic digital camera.

So because I did not do the beer any justice just trust me that it was delicious.

So now came time to figure out a baked good to pair with this spectacular beer.  I knew immediately that I needed something chocolate because...well it doesn't take much for me to decide I need chocolate. But since this had notes of chipotle and spicyness I wanted to do something a bit different.  Several months ago I had stumbled upon a recipe for "Spicy Mexican Hot Chocolate Cookies" and that seemed almost too perfect.  

Spicy Mexican Hot Chocolate Cookies

1 stick unsalted butter

4 oz unsweetened chocolate

1 cup light brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 large eggs

1 cup AP flour

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1 tbsp cinnamon

1 tsp chili powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Melt the butter and the chocolate either in a double boiler or in the microwave.

In a stand mixer beat the brown sugar, white sugar, vanilla and eggs.  Slowly pour in the melted chocolate until mixed thoroughly.

In a seperate bowl mix and sift the dry ingredients. 

Add the dry ingredients to the chocolate batter slowly until it is thoroughly mixed and then fold in the chocolate chips.

Take an ice cream scoop and place balls of dough on a non stick baking sheet. Bake in the oven for 14 minutes and rotate halfway through.

The cookies were definitely different. Just like the name indicates, it's similar to chewing on a mexican hot chocolate. To keep up with tradition, I didn't take any good pictures of the cookies themselves until they I had already eaten some of them and then bagged them up to take to work.

I had such a fun time with this challenge and swapping creative ideas with Ben. Hopefully we can do it again soon in the future if he isn't too disappointed in my procrastination!