Baking in the Dark

Like KC Beer Blog and Show-Me Beer, this blog received a complimentary bottle of Boulevard's Dark Truth and a little box of Christopher Elbow chocolates. While I can promise you the chocolates are good and well-paired with the stout, do you really need a third blog telling you such? I didn't think so.

I was unable to pick up my bottle until today because of work and personal obligations the past several days, so I decided not to rehash what's already been said and bore you to tears. So what did I do with Dark Truth?

I baked it.

I've been looking forward to this beer ever since I heard about it. Behind Saison-Brett, the Imperial Stout is my 2nd-favorite Smokestack beer. I was curious what this one would taste like - so many grains, Belgian yeast, no barrel-aging... So I tasted it. And I was surprised at the amount of roasty bitterness there was in the beer, but in a good way. This stout screams to be paired with chocolate. Or caramel. Or chocolate-covered cherries. But again, I wanted to do something different.

On my drive home today, I wondered how banana bread and vanilla ice cream might go with the stout. Dark Truth calls for a special banana bread, one with chocolate & toasted pecans to complement the roasty, molasses flavor of the stout. I chose milk chocolate chips simply because I love them and thought they would contrast well with the roasted malt presence in the stout. And they absolutely did!

(I'd put some pictures of the batter & the bottle here, but I accidentally overwrote them when I copied the new pictures to my computer. Oops.) This was a special treat tonight that I'm very happy to share with you. Here's the recipe for the banana bread (based on Michael Ruhlman's recipe in Ratio):

Ingredients
8oz flour
4oz sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
6 oz Dark Truth
2 eggs
1 stick butter
1 cup mashed bananas
1/4 cup toasted pecan pieces
1 cup milk chocolate chips

Directions
Heat the oven to 350F.

Combine the flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder in a small bowl. In a large bowl, mix the butter, eggs, and bananas until pretty well combined. Pour in the Dark Truth and mix slowly. Add the pecans and chocolate chips, and stir until just mixed.

Add the flour mixture to the liquid mixture and stir until just combined. Pour into a greased loaf pan and bake for an hour (until knife inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean). Remove from oven & set on a cooling rack. Let cool in pan for at least 1/2 hour. Remove from pan and cool to room temperature.

Slice, serve with a glass of Dark Truth, some Shatto ice cream, and enjoy.