At work, some days are mundane & monotonous. Some days are filled with drama & gossip. Some days are just flat out shitty. But every day that I worked with this one woman & her daughter, were fucking awesome. The mother-daughter duo cooked in the grill and on slow nights (most nights), they would just hang out in the bar with me and smoke cigarettes, talking. The daughter & I got along great because we had much in common, mostly due to the fact that we're both laid-back tomboys. The mother was cool as shit & laid back, a retired pothead, but remained a pothead in her heart. We would joke around, make each other laugh, play practical jokes, goof off, tell nostalgic stories about our stupid antics, you know - shootin' the shit (don't know why we ever got paid, really). And I'm the shoot the shit kind of gal so those endlessly entertaining nights are missed by me since they've quit.
The daughter had gotten a new job, but drops in every now & then to hang out in the bar. Her mother, on the other hand, had to stop working because she started having back issues flare up from a previous car accident. She ended up having back surgery nearly a week ago and during the surgery, she had a stroke followed by several seizures. This, of course, frightened everyone, but as of right now, she's at home & recovering. So I decided to bake her a special batch of cupcakes to help aid in the recovery.
I knew I wanted to make her MICHELOB LAGER cupcakes because that's what she would drink whenever she got off work. She would clock out at 10:00PM and sit at the bar, chain smoking, laughing and joking, and drinking bottle after bottle after bottle of Michelob Lager. She was the only person to every drink the stuff. My boss hasn't even stocked the stuff since she hasn't been around because of her back.
I had a different cake recipe for Irish Car Bombs and thought that I'd substitute Lager for Guinness. The hard decision was what I should make for a frosting. I originally figured a Bailey's buttercream would be the way to go because it's the safest, even though I didn't agree with the flavor combination. A chocolate cake is a bit on the dense side to me and I thought a Bailey's buttercream would just be dense on dense, let alone an overpoweringly sweet dense. I was also desperate to try something new since I've made two frostings with Bailey's in it. But, like I said, I was just going to go with it because it was the safest.
When I went to the grocery store to buy the Lager, I saw on the shelf above it, MICHELOB HONEY LAGER and I immediately thought, "That's a bingooooo!" (INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS = fave Tarantino film). I jumped on the internet and came upon a recipe for a honey meringue-like frosting. I thought it would be perfect since the frosting was going to be light & airy, and have a more subdued sweet taste. It was exactly what I was looking for so I rushed home to start. The recipe's process was much like the Irish Car Bomb cupcakes, in that it was more grueling due to extra steps. I don't know if it's because it's a chocolate cake made from scratch or what, but it turned out excellent. I'm not one for chocolate - if I had the choice, vanilla will always be my pick because it's light & fluffier in texture, but this is one of the better chocolate cakes I've tasted in a while. It may be because of the light & fluffy frosting that counteracted it? I should have tried the cake by itself, but I like my first taste to be the finished product. I actually tasted no hint of beer in the cake, which somewhat disappointed me since that was the point of the whole cake. The recipe called for 8 oz, but I poured the entire bottle (12 oz) in the batch. If I had poured any more, I fear the batter would have been too liquid-y.
R grading (B-): He actually gave me a decent critique. I couldn't believe it. He said that the cake was a bit too "chocolate-y", but thought that the frosting balanced it well. He also said, "the after taste is the best part", which I'm not entirely sure what that means, but it sounded like a compliment.
B grading (B+): And that was that. She seemed reluctant to try them, maybe because I told her they were "Michelob Lager" cupcakes?
The mother I baked them for loved them, but she loves everything that I bake so.. nothing to go on there.
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