Day 197: My Goodness

I could write about last night's dinner at Nectar in Moscow, ID, where I had some super yummy lamb chops and my very first broccolini (nice vegetable--kind of noncommitally vegetabley). Instead, I'm going to write about my dessert at Bucer's Coffeehouse & Pub, where the hubby and I ate a lovely slab of chocolate Guinness cake (who knew beer was so good in cake?) with Irish cream frosting (um, yum!), accompanied by a pint of (what else?) Guinness Extra Stout. Beer and cake. It's a whole new taste sensation. Add to this some pretty fun Irish folk music, complete with a pipe/whistle thing made out of PVC (sounded pretty good), and you've got a lovely evening.

The interesting thing is that there was no alcoholic taste in the cake. I would expect the cake batter to absorb that bitterness into the chocolate, and for a lot of the flavor to bake out, but the baker had a nice light hand with the Irish cream in the frosting so it didn't overwhelm. The most interesting thing to me was how nicely the beer went with the cake. Alongside the chocolate, it didn't taste bitter at all. It's one of those things to bring out at a tasting party, like pairing Merlot with chocolate or white wine with fruity candies. But don't go overboard; in my experience, booze and sugar stop being friendly less than a couple drinks in.