A Morsel of St. Patty's Day

First off, Happy St. Patrick's Day!  Or...as Paul says..Happy St. Paddy's Day.  I tried to tell him it is Patty like Patrick - but he assured me it is Paddy as is Pádraig.  Touché!

I don't remember if we wrote about it on here or not, but last year we tried to go authentic Irish with soda bread and brisket.  The soda bread (recipe compliments of Mary Vaca!) was great.  The brisket was pretty good - but probably still the most expensive piece of meat we've ever bought.

So this year we are taking a slightly different angle.  We're saving the soda bread for the weekend when we'll be home.  And we're skipping the brisket, hoping that the Irish pub we're going to tonight has good Irish food.  If not, we'll go to a different butcher and have brisket with our soda bread this weekend.

Instead - I made a few Irish-esque treats for work.  First, to be culturally sensitive to our Muslim colleagues who don't drink, I made shamrock sugar cookies with green frosting.  They were delicious!  Although, like other attempts to be culturally sensitive, I found that many (not all) of the Muslim colleagues preferred the second treat:  mini-chocolate Guinness (stout) cupcakes with Bailey's Irish cream frosting.  Delicious little bite-size treats! 

Finally - the best of all...a Chocolate Guinness Stout Cupcake (full-sized) with Bailey's Irish Cream Frosting and....drum roll.....a Chocolate Whiskey Ganache filling!  Hmm!  I think there are enough calories in this to count for a weekend's worth of treats!  The top picture was sent from my phone to let my friend know to come grab one.  And then I forgot to take a picture until I was half-way done with mine.  Oops.

I used to wonder why my roommate made treats to give away at work and now I know....first, if you keep them at home (which we've done with 2 cakes now) you start to notice that your stomach doesn't feel so flat in the morning.  :(  But more importantly - you should see the looks on people's faces when they try them!  The big surprise in these treats (to me) was the reaction to the cookies.  Three or four colleagues said they were only going to break off a small piece...and then came back for the rest of their cookie.  Another three colleagues asked for the recipe!  Another said I should be selling these cookies!  Another said it was the best cookie they'd had..."when is the next holiday!?!" 

Maybe 25% of what they said is just them trying to make me feel good...but I can tell when you are just trying to make me feel good and when you really do like my food. 

If I may pat myself on the back for a moment - I made the cookie cutter from scratch!  And I didn't even slice open any fingers in the process.  Also - the cookies really did taste like those ones you buy at the store that have the powder on the bottom and are super super soft and thick.  And...do you see the swirls in the frosting on the cupcakes?  Finally got that right!  But...so you know that I don't think I'm all that and a box chocolates...it took me three tries to get the right shape for the cookie cutter...and one batch of frosting just slithered its way off the cupcake...and the cookies probably should have been thicker.  (Ha!  No one even touched the box of thin mints on my desk - do you think that means I can have them all!?)

The answer to when the next holiday is?  Tomorrow!  It's Purim!