Archive for: root beer
I have been itching to make some root beer cupcakes with my bottle of Sonoma Syrup Co’s Root Beer Syrup because the syrup is so flavorful and seemed like it would pass on a great root beer flavor into baked goods. The syrup has concentrated the root beer flavor and it comes through much more strongly (and more naturally) than using root beer-flavored extract might. Once I had cupcakes, I decided to keep on going and turn them into Root Beer Float Cupcakes by topping them off with vanilla ice cream
The cupcakes are moist and have a nice, tight crumb that seems to pass on more flavor in each bite. You can really taste the root beer, and the hint of vanilla – which many root beers also include – rounds out the flavor. They can be eaten plain, but they’re at their best when served with ice cream and a drizzle of root beer syrup. To get the ice cream in there, I carved a small hole out of the top of each cupcake, just as I do when I’m going to make filled cupcakes, and placed a small scoop of ice cream on top. I drizzled the cupcakes with a little bit of root beer glaze to give them a little extra flavor and a root beer float look. You can store the ice cream-topped cupcakes in the freezer for a few hours before serving, if desired.
If you don’t have the root beer syrup, and don’t want to buy it, you have two options to make these cupcakes. The first option is to simply use milk in place of the root beer syrup in the recipe and add in about 1 tsp root beer flavored extract. The second option (and a better option, in my opinion) is to buy some good, non-diet root beer (12-oz), pour it into a sauce pan and reduce it until you have about 1/3 cup. This will take about 15-20 minutes over medium-high heat and will concentrate the root beer flavor, imitating the syrup that I used.
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Root beer is one of my favorite soda flavors, so I couldn’t walk by the bottles of Sonoma Syrup Co.’s Root Beer Soda Syrup in Williams Sonoma without picking one up to try (they had cola and lemon-lime, too). I like a lot of the other products from Sonoma Syrup Co, including their vanilla bean crush, so I had fairly high hopes for the root beer. Plus, the idea of making my own gourmet soda was pretty appealing, especially because the instructions on the bottle just called for mixing the syrup with chilled soda water and giving it a stir before serving. The root beer and other sodas are all hand made using natural ingredients, cane sugar and natural flavorings. The root beer includes sweet birch, caramel, cinnamon, sassafras and vanilla.
The root beer syrup didn’t disappoint me. It was sweet, flavorful and peppery. It actually reminded me a lot of those little root beer barrel candies that you find at some candy stores (I used to buy those all the time when I was young!). The best thing about the syrup is that you can mix up however much soda you want – even if it’s just a little bit -at one time without having to open a can or a big bottle. The whole bottle makes about 25 8-oz servings. You can also adjust the amount of flavoring in your soda, if you prefer it stronger or weaker. I found that adding a little extra when I was making root beer floats made them even better. Because this syrup is really a concentrate (all of the carbonation comes from the soda water you mix it with), you could also use this as a flavoring for other recipes if you don’t want to drink down the whole bottle.
Beer is a major ingredient in a lot of recipes. Guinness, in particular – not to mention other dark stouts – works its way into quite a few baked goods. It pairs especially well with chocolate because of its naturally dark, chocolaty flavor, so Guinness Cupcakes and Guinness Chocolate Cake are fairly common. Guinness Brownies are not seen quite as often, but work for much the same reason. Unless St Patrick’s Day is coming up, I don’t usually keep Guinness around so I decided to play around and see if I could get the brownies to work with something I always have on hand: root beer.
I know that root beer isn’t really beer, but once the idea popped into my head I couldn’t resist trying it out. I used a bottle of Dr Brown’s root beer, pouring most into the brownies and saving a few sips for myself.
Most of the recipes I’ve seen for Guinness brownies include both dark and white chocolate, which is an unusual touch for a chocolate brownie recipe. The sweetness of the white chocolate covers up some of the bitterness of the beer and gives the brownies a smoother finish. I included the white chocolate in this recipe, too, but in my case I was hoping to temper the strength of the darker chocolate and let the root beer flavor come through.
In the end, the flavor of the root beer is definitely overpowered by chocolate – and that’s not really a bad thing for a batch of brownies! They are very chocolaty and have a slightly unusual texture to them. They’re fudgy and definitely give you a melt-in-your-mouth effect, but they are not dense or very chewy. I believe that is the root beer’s signature addition to these treats.
These brownies are much better the day after they are made: fudgier, moister and with a deeper flavor. Make them in the evening, then wrap them up and slice them the next day!
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Although it was nothing in size compared to the record-setting Coke float, I guess you could say that I was just a little inspired by the giant ice cream soda because I decided to make myself a – much smaller – root beer float. Floats, and ones made with root beer in particular, pair perfectly with hot dogs, hamburgers and just about any other summer day when you feel like a regular soda isn’t quite indulgent enough.
Making soda into a float is not rocket science: start with a big glass, add a scoop or two (or three) of your favorite vanilla ice cream and pour over the root beer. There are a few tricks to making a good one, however. First, it is important to spring for a good quality ice cream, or even a gelato. The richer ice creams hold up to the soda, while cheap, over-aerated brands will dissipate quickly in the carbonation. Lower fat ice creams often contain water or ice and can even dilute the drink. Second, while it is nice to get a good head on top of the float, pouring technique is crucial to avoid getting a glass of foam. Put the ice cream in first, then pour the root beer gently down the side of the glass. As it fills up, pour straight down, allowing foam to form and top off the drink.
Finally, don’t forget to serve your float with both a straw and a spoon to get the most out of the treat!
Ordinarily, I would make ribs in the oven. They would be seasoned, sauced, wrapped tightly in foil and baked long hours at a low temperature until the meat was falling-off-the-bone tender. I am not thrilled with the heat that this generates in my kitchen, butt the only real problem I see with this method is that it renders my oven unavailable to other baked goods. I like to have cornbread with barbeque and it just doesn’t turn out quite right when you try to bake it in a 250F oven.
To free up that valuable oven space, I used my crockpot. I have a 5 quart slow cooker (crockpot), so I used 4 pounds of baby back ribs. If you have a small one, use two. This is important because the sauce will scorch a bit if you are not filling your cooker with enough meat. And who ever complained about a few extra ribs?
I was incredibly pleased with how well these turned out. I needed two spoons to get the ribs out, rather than tongs, because the meat came off the bones as though it had never been attached. And the taste? Teeth were completely unnecessary.
I started with a recipe from Epicurious for barbeque sauce and altered it a bit according to the comments left by other users and my own tastes. The sauce was on the sweet side, but the paprika and dash of red pepper flakes cut it just enough. It was great with the ribs. You could taste many flavors in the sauce, and while you can taste a hint of root beer if you know it is there, no one else is likely to guess the “secret ingredient”. If you don’t have root beer, substitute some brand of cola. I like the sauce to be a little thinner for roasting and crock pot cooking, as opposed to grilling, where I like it thick. If you like it thicker, continue to reduce the sauce down to 1 1/2 cups, which will take an additional 10-15 minutes.
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