Tag: sprinkles

Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane and Guinness Chocolate Bundt Cake with O’Doul’s Frosting

My friend, Math, who is a book cover designer, brought a stack of books as his contribution to a Friendsgiving potluck. I loved it. It was the best potluck contribution ever. Who needs another tray of mashed potatoes when you could have BOOKS! (Actually… I’ll take both, please!) From his stack, I picked up Ask Again, Yes, a book that I had recently placed on my “to read” list. I was excited to read another novel by Keane after reading Fever, a fictionalized story about Typhoid Mary by her last year for a book club. Ask Again, Yes’s story follows two families who become neighbors in a typical suburban town outside of New York City. Both sets of families, the Stanhopes and the Gleesons, have their unique issues behind closed doors. It is when these issues begin to spill outside of the house that the drama of the book really picks up. 

This book gives an intimate look at how mental health issues can affect a family. Keane is subtle in the way she exposes these throughout the book in a similar way to how mental health struggles can be subtle to outsiders. It is seen in one glance from a character or one comment until it eventually builds to a climax. If you don’t notice the small build-up of these struggles it can seem that they came out of nowhere – only the one struggling knows just how difficult it was to keep the chaos at bay previous to an outburst. Overall, this story shows us the power of forgiveness and ultimately how important family and love are. It was both a love story and a story about parenthood. As a result of the novel covering how these relationships can progress with such accurate pacing, the whole book felt a little slow. It wasn’t until the last 50 or so pages that I felt like I couldn’t put the book down. 

Final Recommendation:

Skip it! /  ((Put it on your list!)) / Go read it now!

Food isn’t mentioned a lot in this novel, but when it is, it is cited as something to bring comfort – like Kate Gleeson imagining her mom’s warm bowl of oatmeal waiting for her at home or Peter Stanhope thinking of his mom giving him butterscotch candies to make him feel better. Food has a nostalgic power to send us right back to a place of safety. It is the alcoholic beverages that wreak havoc and result in pain for our characters. One of the major plot arcs in the book follows the subtle way alcoholism can consume someone and how something can start as a crutch or an escape and quickly dissolve into a dependency. Peter’s uncle, George warned him as he was heading off to college about the “gene” that he was afraid Peter could have based on his family. The “gene” made it difficult to quit after a drink or so and the “gene” ruined relationship after relationship because of this. There is also a real glimpse of how we as a society have trouble identifying when someone has trouble with alcohol because it is so normalized. It’s cool to have a scotch or two after work to wind down, to feel fancy at dinner with a glass of red wine, or to drink a few beers at a neighborhood barbecue. Often, we depend on arbitrary rules around it like what time of the day we deem acceptable to drink or how sloppy we allow someone to be. In the book, even when presented with a clear issue people made excuses like what if you cut out all clear liquors because those are the worst, and what if you just limit yourself to drinking at parties and not alone? Then, on top of all of this is the shame that accompanies it all for the individual experiencing it and for their family – and how to fight the instinct to keep it all hidden. 

Out of this came this recipe: a Guinness cake, referencing the Irish roots throughout this book (and the assumption that beer/darker beverages we somehow ok/better) all topped off with a non-alcoholic cream cheese O’Doul’s beer frosting. I also think of bundt cakes when I think of suburbia, and could imagine Lena, Kate’s mom, excitedly bringing over this cake to Anne, Peter’s mom, only to be shocked when it was coldly received. 

Two quotes inspired this cake:

“He looked at the row of tap handles and picked one, though he didn’t know one from another. The bartender didn’t ask for ID, so when he finished that beer he ordered another. Then one more after that. Three pints of some kind of dark beer, heavy for a summer day, but once he made a choice he thought he’d better stick with it. […] He felt warm, easy in his body, realized he might be a tiny bit drunk. He didn’t know it would feel so cozy.”

Keane, page 186

“Peter drank O’Doul’s when George was over, one after another, like the next one might quench his thirst. ‘Have a real one,’ George said once, last summer. They were out on the patio, the kids trying to catch fireflies. ‘Nah, this is fine,’ Peter said. ‘But you did already, right? Before we came? And you’ll have more once we leave?’”

Keane, page 280

Guinness Chocolate Bundt Cake
Adapted from thehungryhousewife.com

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of Guinness Stout
• 1 cup of unsalted butter (2 sticks)
• ¾ cup of unsweetened Cocoa Powder (I like Dutch-processed for the best flavor)
• 2 cups of All-Purpose Flour, sifted
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 2 teaspoons of Baking Soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ¾ cup of Sour Cream
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla extract
• ½ cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips
• To grease pan: one tablespoon of unsalted butter and a little less than ¼ cup of flour

How-To:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 (fun tidbit: I always forget to do this no matter how long I’ve been baking, so I always end up standing in my kitchen for ten minutes or more with my batter done waiting for my oven to preheat. Don’t be like me and preheat!)
2. Grease and flour your bundt pan. This step is CRUCIAL for all cakes but is especially important with bundt pans that have lots of crevices. I take a tablespoon of unsalted butter. Warm it for 10-15 seconds in the microwave if it is just out of the fridge. I then rub it all over the pan. When I am sure I’ve covered it in butter, I sprinkle my flour with a spoon all over the pan and then tap and rotate it over the sink (to avoid a mess). You should see the flour stick to the butter and cover everything. If there is a shiny spot you either missed it with butter or with the flour so patch it up! After you’re sure you got everywhere, turn the pan upside down over the sink and tap it so excess flour falls and doesn’t turn your chocolate cake white!
3. Take your two sticks of butter and your 1 cup of Guinness and bring it to a boil over medium heat. After it boils, turn off the heat and immediately whip in the cocoa powder. It should look like a thin chocolate sauce.
4. Add the remaining dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking soda, salt) to a bowl and whisk together. 
5. In a separate bowl (or the bowl of a stand mixer) beat the eggs, vanilla, and sour cream together. 
6. Slowly add the Guinness mixture to the egg mixture and beat until combined, about 30 seconds to 1 minute on medium speed (but make sure your Guinness mixture has cooled a bit. It is ok if it is warm!)
7. Add the flour mixture a little at a time, using the stand mixer on low for about 10 seconds after each addition. It is important not to over mix once you incorporate the flour, so mix it until just combined and then use a rubber spatula to mix it around and ensure that all the ingredients combine. 
8. Fold in the chocolate chips. 
9. Pour into your bundt pan and cook for 50-55 minutes. To check if it is done I touch the top and see if it bounces back (which means it’s ready! If it stays, give it some more time) You can also use a long toothpick or a cake tester to see if it comes out dry. 
10. Cool your bundt on top of a wire cooling rack for 10 minutes. If you try and flip the pan too early, your bundt might crack or stick to the pan.

O’Doul’s Beer Cream Cheese Icing
I took my tried-and-true cream cheese frosting and added some beer to it.

• 4 tablespoons of unsalted butter, softened
• 4 ounces of cream cheese, softened
• 1 ½ – 2 cups of powdered sugar (depending on how sweet you like it)
• Splash of vanilla extract
• 3-4 tablespoons of O’Doul’s (or any beer)

1. Take out your butter when you start making your cake or about an hour before you start this recipe. If not, you’ll want to carefully soften your butter in the microwave at 10-15 intervals. 
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat together the butter and the cream cheese.
3. Add the sugar a half cup at a time, allowing it to incorporate for 15 seconds after each addition. 
4. Add the splash of vanilla, for some flavor. 
5. Add the O’Doul’s, one tablespoon at a time. Taste test as you go until you get the flavor/consistency you want. I used 4 tablespoons and it had a loose consistency and a very slight beer taste.