It‘s Ann here today. Andy is in OurLittleCorner with a stamp of approval.
My interest in “stout” began a few weeks ago when our food-writer daughter said I should make a sticky toffee pudding recipe with a “Stout Caramel” sauce for a dinner party we were having. She had written an article for The SF Standard raving about the delicious food at San Francisco’s new Dingles Public House. I was supposed to figure out how to replicate this dessert she’d been served. I knew from her article that it had Guinness Stout in the sauce and Earl Grey tea in the pudding.
Rather than tackle the challenging sauce and pudding project and do some friction maxxing (remember Andy’s last blog?), I took the easy way out and sat and day-dreamed about other things, such as…
What does the word “STOUT” really mean?
STOUT: A dark, full-bodied ale?
STOUT: having physical strength and vigor?
STOUT: Someone who is brave, bold, resolute, full of courage?
(note here to all my CC Gamma Phi Besties: didn’t we used to sing, “With our crescent of pearls, we are stouthearted girls”?). Below is a statue of a woman who was really stouthearted, probably more so than me and my Besties! 🙂
In case you’re unfamiliar with Grace O’Malley, here’s what Anne Chambers, author of the biography about O’Malley (entitled Granuaile ) writes: O’Malley was a “fearless leader by land and by sea, political pragmatist and tactician, rebel, pirate and matriarch, the ’most notorious woman in all the coasts of Ireland’ GRACE O’MALLEY challenges and manipulates the turbulent politics of the 16th century. Breaching boundaries of gender imbalance and bias, she re-wrote the rules to become one of the world’s first documented feminist trail-blazers.” You can read more about this Irish Pirate here.
STOUT: A person who has a thick body?
When I finally got up the nerve to try to develop a recipe, I was a little anxious about the potential calorie content…after all, at my age it’s easy to get a little stout. So I looked up some exercises…the kind I might actually do. Please turn the sound on so you can fully appreciate why I think this fits today’s blog.
Sea shanties came along probably 200+ years after the Irish Pirate Grace O’Malley lived – but I think she would have liked this song, “The Wellerman,”even though the lyrics refer to whaling ships in New Zealand in the mid-1800’s and the singer, Nathan Evans, is Scottish, not Irish, and didn’t record it until 2021, 418 years after her death. Would she have been happy that it became a huge TikTok hit?
Facebook reel by Doc H.
After picking and choosing ingredients and measurements and instructions from about eight online Sticky Toffee Pudding recipes, I’m pleased with the way my recipes turned out – even if it was a struggle. Whew.
Hope you have a happy and fun St. Patrick’s Day next Tuesday. We suggest you enjoy a Guinness, watch the How to Get to Heaven from Belfast series, read up on pirates (especially Irish women pirates), and have a (small) piece of Sticky Toffee Pudding – served on top of a big spoonful of Guinness STOUT Caramel Sauce and topped with vanilla gelato. Then do a wee bit of exercise.
Guinness Stout Caramel Sauce
- 1 12-ounce bottle of Guinness extra stout
- 3/4 c light brown sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 T butter
- 1 c cream
- 1/4 tsp Diamond kosher salt
Pour the stout into a medium saucepan and heat to boiling. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook until the stout is reduced by about half.
Stir in the brown sugar and vanilla. Heat to boiling, reduce heat to a simmer and let mixture cook for 8-10 minutes without stirring.
Remove from heat, add the butter, cream and salt and gently stir. Put into a glass container and let cool. Refrigerate – and use within 2 weeks.
Sticky Toffee Pudding
- 1/2 lb (about 8 oz) pitted dates , roughly chopped
- 1 1/3 c boiling water (optional: add 3 bags of Earl Grey tea to the boiling water and steep for 4 minutes before pouring over dates)
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 8 T butter, softened
- 3/4 c light brown sugar , loosely packed
- 3 eggs
- 1 T golden syrup (optional but delicious)
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 3/4 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp cardamon
- 1/4 tsp ground ginger
- 1 tsp Diamond kosher salt
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1 3/4 c flour
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 9″x12″ baking pan.
Place dates in a medium bowl and add the boiling water. Stir in the baking soda (it will fizz).
Put the flour in a medium bowl, then whisk in the cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamon, ginger, salt and baking powder.
Place butter and brown sugar in a bowl or food processor. Beat or process until smooth. Add eggs, syrup and vanilla and beat until well-blended. Add the flour mixture and mix until just incorporated. Then add the date mixture and mix or process until combined well – but don’t over mix.
Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 30-35 minutes – or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
Cool the pudding in the pan on a wire rack. To serve – cut into small squares, ideally while it’s still slightly warm and place each square on top of a generous spoonful of Guinness Stout Caramel Sauce, then top it all with with a little vanilla gelato.
Oh, wow! I want to make this dessert ASAP! As for stout, I recall a dress store named The Stylish Stout. Who would shop there??
Andy here: I fully endorse making the dessert; it’s great. “Stylish Stout”is clever name but I would guess that it didn’t stay in business for long.
“Stout” was on the label of the trousers that my parents bought for me back when. I hated the designation.
Andy here: I had the same “stout” experience. I can recall my parents taking me to Robert Hall Clothing to subject me to the torture of trying on clothes (Robert Hall went bankrupt in 1977).
In Australia, Sticky Date Pudding is a big deal, but in all the years Ross and I lived there I just never really warmed to it. Maybe it just needed some Guinness Stout Caramel Sauce!
Andy here: You may have hit on the solution to enjoying Sticky Date Pudding. The caramel sauce is the secret to its success.