A Dose of Good Luck

Let me interrupt your social media feed to remind everyone that good still exists in this world..and it's in the form of cake. This mint chocolate chip cake with Baileys mint buttercream frosting and handmade solid chocolate shamrock may not solve a crisis, but it is an excellent way to take your mind off the outside world. Considering we're all supposed to be social distancing and self quarantining, you can make this cake and not even have to share a single slice. Leprechauns don't share their gold, and you don't have to share your cake--true St. Patrick's Day spirit!

It may not be as pretty as a fully-stocked toilet paper aisle in these trying times, but it is super festive, so this cake has that going for it.

I adore St. Patrick's Day celebrations, but they've all pretty much been canceled this year, so let's meet up again in April and drink green beer and eat Irish food for Saint Paddy's Day Part Two: Greener and Cleaner. I realize COVID-19 isn't something to take lightly, but as a seasonal allergy sufferer, I am tired of people looking at me like I'm Typhoid Mary every time I sneeze...thanks, pollen. I'm indoors today and marveling over how delicious this cake is...stuffed with Andes mint chips, complimented by Baileys and mint extract, this is like the chocolate version of a Shamrock Shake, but even better because you don't have to find a McDonald's with a functioning ice cream machine to get it (plus, booze). And at only 323 calories a slice for 10 slices or 269 calories a slice for 12 slices, it's even healthier than a Shamrock Shake...Baileys included. And I feel like in times of panic, everything needs a Baileys chaser.

Plus so simple to make!

Since most grocery aisles are bare, I hope you have a lot of this stuff on hand already. As someone who drinks lactose-free milk, doesn't eat gluten, and bakes sugar-free, I've gotta say all these weird digestive issues that force me to eat this way have helped ensure what I need is always in stock at Publix. Mostly because no one else wants to touch it, so there's that. To make this cake, you need:

• 1 box Devil's Food cake mix (I used sugar free--it's amazing)
• 3 egg whites (could attempt with flax eggs to make vegan)
• 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1 1/4 cups skim milk (can use dairy free or vegan varieties)
• 1 1/2 tsp mint extract (not peppermint)
• 1/2 cup Andes baking chips or chopped mint chocolate baking bar

Preheat your oven to 350, grease three six-inch round baking pans and use bake even strips to finish pan prep. Dump all ingredients except for the mint chips into a stand mixer and blend on medium-high for 2 minutes. Add the mint chips and mix on low until totally folded in.

Bake even strips are a godsend.

 Pour batter evenly into prepared pans and bake for 25-30 minutes. Since there's chocolate chips in the cake, it's harder to get a good read with a toothpick on doneness. The cake shouldn't be jiggly at all when it is done cooking, and the top should spring back quickly when gently pressed. Place cakes, still in the pan, on cooling racks for 10 minutes.

Dotted with chocolate mint chip goodness.

After 10 minutes, remove from the pan and let cakes cool completely. I give it a good thirty minutes, then I level my cakes. With the stripe technique I used here, you want cakes that are uniform and completely level. Plus, this way you get to eat the cake scraps, and they are delish. While the cakes cool, you can make your frosting and the chocolate shamrock.

And maybe drink some Baileys.

The frosting needs to be thick and firm for this stripe technique, so I had to make a regular American buttercream instead of the nice, light, whipped buttercream I've been fan-girling over. You need:

• 1 cup of butter at room temp (I used 1/2 cup regular and 1/2 cup 50% reduced fat butter from Land O' Lakes because it was the only thing left at my commissary...hoarders..)
• 4 cups of Lakanto powdered monkfruit sweetener or Swerve confectioners (Lakanto doesn't have the weird cooling effect Swerve does, so this is my new secret weapon in sugar-free frosting)
• 1 tsp clear vanilla extract
• 1 tsp mint extract
• 4 TBS Baileys
• If frosting is too thick and you want it to be whiter for stripes, use a TBS of skim milk or so; otherwise, if coloring isn't an issue, use more Baileys until it's smooth enough to frost

Whip the butter until fluffy, then add in half the sweetener and the two extracts. Blend on low until well mixed, then add in the remaining sweetener and the Baileys. Add more milk or Baileys as needed until you get the consistency you're looking for. I needed something sturdy but spreadable, so I did end up adding 1 TBS milk in at the end.

Like a Baileys-filled Oreo dream.

Assemble your cakes, taking time to make sure everything lines up just right so your edges aren't overhanging anywhere and everything is level. Stripes will show any weirdness, so I took longer than usual to place a layer upside down, slather a thin layer of frosting, place another layer upside down and take time to center, etc. until I finished with a thick layer of frosting on the top final layer.

Crumb coat-shrum coat.

 I've not crumb coated a cake in eons, which is terrible, but I didn't have much issue with chocolate crumbs here, so I forged on. You want a layer of frosting as thick as the teeth on the cake comb you use to make the stripes, so this has a LOT of frosting on it, which did help cover crumbs. You don't need to worry about smoothing the sides out too much since the cake comb will do this for you.

Speaking of combs, I found this Wilton cake comb on Amazon. It came in a pack of 3 different combs with 6 sides total, so this is how I do cakes from now until I've tried every combination. I used the right side of the comb for this cake.

Swipe, swipe, and swipe again. Like Tinder, but for cakes.

Make sure you have your cake on a turntable and slowly glide the comb around the cake until you get deep grooves. I passed over my cake about 3-4 times before I ended up with the above result. It doesn't need to look pretty or smooth yet since you'll take care of that when you add the second color. But once you have your cake completely frosted, set it in the fridge for 30 minutes to firm up the frosting and prevent color bleeding from the green lines. I put mine in the freezer and took a nap, and that was WAY too long...everything was frozen and nothing would smooth out, so once it thawed enough to smooth, I had some color bleeds because of it. I'd say no longer than 15 minutes in the freezer. Now is a great time to make that solid chocolate shamrock...

All green, all the time.

 Dye your remaining frosting green with a Kelly green gel dye and set aside. You'll need green chocolate melts, a shamrock cookie cutter, green sprinkles, and a really good bench scraper or cake scraper to finish this entire cake. I melted a few tablespoons of green chocolate melts according to package directions in a small bowl. I added a little bit of oil to thin it out, and then I put a layer of wax paper down, placed my shamrock cookie cutter on top, and poured the chocolate inside of the cookie cutter. I used a spoon to even things out, then I carefully transferred to the fridge to set for 30 minutes. I used a sharp knife to cut around the edges of the cookie cutter, but I did have a crack form right down the middle of the whole thing (naturally). I used a lighter to melt the crack and swiped it with an angled spatula to smooth out the broken piece, and it was good as new.

Mmm, melty chocolate.

It is a BRICK of chocolate, and I LOVE it.

Now, grab that cake and the green frosting. There are two ways to do this: smother the entire outside of the cake with green frosting and swipe off until you have clean lines, or the beginner's way. I chose the beginners way since I had never done this before. I put my green frosting into a piping bag fitted with a small basket weaving tip. I then piped the green frosting into the indentations left by the cake comb:

It gets prettier, I promise.

Then I took one swipe around the entire cake with my bench scraper. It left me with this:

Do not freak out and panic. Save that for the Corona Virus.

The more passes you take around the cake, the more even the coloring will get. I probably went around my cake 7 or 8 times, scraping once, removing excess frosting from my bench scraper, and then scraping again. You will have a ton of leftover frosting because of this, but save some for cake borders or topping decorations. This is after the final pass:

A little wonky, but still much, much better.

I was pretty pleased with how this turned out for a first attempt. If I hadn't over-frozen the cake, I wouldn't have had such issues with bleeds or uneven lines in a few places. But overall, you can tell there is a clear delineation and a pretty snazzy green and white stripe pattern. Kind makes me want an after dinner mint. The green kind are superior to the red ones anyway.

It's not finished if there aren't sprinkles.

 To finish, I placed my shamrock on center stage and then switched to a #21 open star piping tip to pipe little green swirls around the top of my cake. I dusted in between each swirl with green glitter flecks. I am so happy with how seasonal and celebratory this cake looks. It's a different kind of March Madness out there these days, so it was good to put the massive amount of worry and stress that working in the tourism industry during a virus outbreak is making me feel right now and focus on something completely within my control. There was Love in the Time of Cholera, and now there's Cake in the Age of Corona Virus. And with a cake like this, I truly believe there's still good in the world. A testament to the delicious powers chocolate + mint chips + Baileys possess. This isn't a very dense cake, but it is solid, and every forkful has a burst of mint chip that works with Baileys in a way that should probably be illegal. At least I don't have to feel badly for refusing to share with any of you right now, but I'm telling ya, make this cake, and you'll still have a reason to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. If Saint Patrick could rid Ireland of snakes, you can survive the craziness out there, too. 'Til next time, my fellow eaters!

A little extra luck never did hurt, after all.