Food Adventure II: The Chocolate Cottage

While we were upstate M and I had a little girl time and went to The Chocolate Cottage in Watertown, NY. (They apparently don't have a website but see this article about them.) I had the Banana Carmel Cream Tart and M had the Dark Chocolate Cup (which is filled with a wonderful chocolate mousse).

From the outside this place looks like a regular house. Entering through the back sliding glass doors was a little weird because you feel like you are going into a stranger's house. However, when you enter the actual dining area you feel like you are in the cutest little European tea house. We had a pot of tea with our yummy sweets and they brought it in the prettiest teapot I think I have ever seen (which I did not take a picture of! doh!). Our tea cups did not match the tea pot, but I did not mind one bit, it was so charming. We had a lovely little table near the window and our waitress was so friendly and sweet.

They were having a little girl's birthday party (I think anyway) in the separate front room. The menu mentions that you can request a traditional tea for parties or meetings. The girls all seemed to be having a lot of fun with it.

On our way out we got a few goodies to take home to the boys (including a box for the rest of M's chocolate cup, which was too big for us to finish!). M got a huge chocolate chip cookie and some truffles for A and I got a box of different chocolates for Chris and I to share. The chocolates (assorted truffles and caramels) were very decadent and delicious. Next to The Candyman** in Greenport, NY, they were the best chocolates I've had in a long time.

I hope that next time we get to visit A&M we also get to visit The Chocolate Cottage.

**The Candyman apparently does not have a website either. What's with these chocolate shops? Anyway, if you are on the North Fork of Long Island at anytime in your life, stop at the Candyman, you will not regret it.

Chocolate Guinness Cake

On Friday, we had two of our friends over for dinner since they helped us move into our new apartment in February. Chris was doing all the cooking (yes, I am a lucky girl, aren't I?) so I decided to make Chocolate Guinness Cake.

I first heard of this from Cupcakes Take The Cake. Immediately I knew that Chris and our friends would love it so I went in search of a recipe. I used the one I found on epicurious.com. The only changes I made were that we only had Guinness Draught in the house and not stout so I used that instead and my local grocery store did not have dutch-process cocoa so I used the old standyby Hershey's Cocoa Powder since I was on a schedule and didn't have time to travel to a different store.

Just out of the pan:

The cake came out fantastic. Moist and rich with a good balance of chocolate and a certain 'breadiness' as Chris put it, which I take to mean that even though the cake was quite dense the texture and taste is that of a much lighter cake. It was creamy on the tongue but not in such a way that it stuck to your mouth in an uncomfortable manner. It sliced beautifully and each slice held together very nicely, which I was a little surprised at considering the texture of the filing.

I did attempt the chocolate 'icing' that the recipe called for, but it did not turn out very well. This may have been because of my brain lapsing during my shopping trip and only buying 12oz of chocolate instead of 16oz, but I also think that the cream to chocolate ratio (2 cups cream to 16oz chocolate) would have been off anyway. The 'icing' did not harden in the refrigerator even though I had it in there for about 4 hours. It ended up being a lumpy mess. So I filled the cake with the chocolate mixture and dusted the outside with powdered sugar instead (I also did not level the top layer because it looked too delicious the way it was perfectly rounded).

I am so glad I decided to do this. The chocolate mixture was definitely too sweet to have iced the whole cake with. It was good for the filling in a very thin layer (because of the runnyness of it) but would have overpowered the cake if it had been all over.


The first slice:

Our friends each requested to take an extra slice home with them.

Next time I think I will try it again with this recipe I found on The Cupcakery for Bailey's Buttercream. I still don't think I will ice the whole cake, I will probably just serve each slice with a nice pipped dollop of the buttercream next to it on the plate.

Overall: a delicious cake that I will definitely be making again in the future.