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At Beer and Iron, we’re here to rescue comfort food from the ordinary – armed with a trusty cast iron pot, a bottle of beer, and a whole lot of rustic charm. We blend bold flavors, real-life stories, and a dash of kitchen mischief to serve up meals that are as fun to make as they are to eat. We’ll bring honest cooking, hearty laughs, and recipes that’ll have you saying, “I can totally make that!” Whether you’re cooking over a campfire or your kitchen stove, we’re all about turning everyday meals into legendary bites, with a little help from our favorite brew and the timeless magic of cast iron.
This is the spirit of Beer and Iron (pun intended).
Adding beer to a recipe brings a host of culinary perks – it boosts flavor, improves texture, and adds an inviting aroma, all thanks to beer’s unique blend of alcohol, water, sugars, acids, and those signature bitter notes. Honestly, it’s the secret ingredient that’ll have your meal brewing with deliciousness!
Beer and Iron moves past the traditional Irish Beef and Guinness Stew. We’ll transform all kinds of dishes with beer as an ingredient to bring out those bold flavors, tender textures, and just add a little palate pleasing magic to each bite. Whether it’s a splash of a smooth porter in your stew, a dash of bock in your bread, or a generous pour of marzen in your marinade, beer’s unique mix of ingredients works wonders beyond what you’d expect. So, get ready to see your favorite comfort foods take on new life, all thanks to a humble bottle of brew and the magic of your trusty cast iron pot.
Episode #7 - Beer & Iron Bananapapple Cake with Beer Icing
00:00:00 Sulae: Welcome to Beer and Iron, where we talk about real cast iron cooking and share recipes with beer as an ingredient. Grab a beer, set that cast iron on the heat and prepare to flip your expectations. We're serving up tales and recipes that are well seasoned and never half baked. This is where the good stories live. I'm Sulae - Chef Sizzle Spinner and Flavor Chronicler - here to share a story, cook something worth eating, and to fill your plate with the kind of goodness that pairs perfectly with a cold brew. Every camping trip has its essentials: a tent, a Dutch oven, and enough beer to cook with, drink with, and if the weather turns biblical, emotionally cope with. We're headed to our favorite high desert campground, the one famous for scorpion hunting, sand dunes, and wind that could sandblast a generation of patina off your favorite number twelve Dutch oven ...and... not even apologize. A few weeks ago, we went camping with this dessert on the menu. There are three things that mix well: camping, Dutch oven cooking, and beer. And when you're camping in a very public, people-packed campsite, on an open plain in the high desert of southwest Idaho, with its unpredictable weather, beer helps maintain that bit of emotional stoicism when the campsite feels more like a crowded tailgating party than the wilderness. It keeps the peace. Beer can flip the whole script. You go from silently cursing their loud music to happily thinking, "Just wait. Later tonight, when the beer runs low and the wind picks up... I'll get front row seats to the drunken neighbor meltdown show." What was strange about this particular trip to Bruneau Dunes was the calm wind... Suspiciously calm... The kind of calm that makes you squint at the horizon and wonder what the universe is planning. Bruneau Dunes without wind is like Idaho without potatoes or sugar beets; it just ain't right. We had to stop off on the way out of town at our local pub to raid the cooler like raccoons with debit cards. They keep the fancy stuff in that cooler. The seven dollars cans, the twelve dollar bottles, and the twenty five dollars "you're paying for the label art" brews. I usually avoid the twenty five dollars ones unless the can looks like it was designed by a wizard. But on that day, a humble twelve dollars porter caught my eye. Plain can... No kitty cats jumping over planets in space. No alpha male skulls with battle axes. Just a humble little can with a black label that whispered, "trust me." And it looked trustworthy. Harmless, even. The kind of beer you can ask to help you move a sofa. The kind of beer that you'll let house sit for you. The kind of beer that wouldn't dare interfere with your third grade math abilities. And, being a full pint, spending that twelve dollars wasn't so hard. It was like a beer and a half. So we hit the road. Boogity, boogity, boogity... and rolled into the campground with enough cast iron to anchor a small ship Breakfast had been hours earlier, and I'd skipped lunch just to save some room for that evening's feast: Cantina Jack Chicken. Cause, friends, I was planning to tear it up!! After all, food don't have no calories when you're camping. I also plan to test a new dessert recipe. Something tropical with bananas and pineapple. No name yet. Naming comes later, after the recipe proves it's worth remembering. And after I know it won't embarrass me in front of company. At about three in the afternoon, with nothing to do but admire the eerie lack of wind, I cracked open that twelve dollars porter. It poured out black. Black is midnight, black as pitch. Blacker than the foulest witch. If you don't get that reference, well then, hey, we just can't be friends. I held it up to the sun, expecting at least a hint of light to peek through. Nope! The beer said, "None shall pass!" And it meant it. Ha! I know you get that reference. It was delicious. A hint of sweetness, dark and velvety. A sipper, for sure. It was a "drink this like your slow-roasting a brisket" kind of beer. What I didn't know... what I should have checked... was this innocent looking pint was quietly plotting to unplug my multiplication tables. As the campground settled into that shared supper hour, the fella on the side of us was attempting to grill hamburgers on the Campsite's Fire Ring Grill - The overly spaced prison bar grates designed by someone who clearly hates hamburgers. I had no idea a hamburger meat could burn that way. "Ah, great! Now the fire's eatin' better than I am!" On the other side was a lady laying slices of ham onto mayonnaise-ed, white bread like she was performing a sacred ritual passed down from generations of people who just hate flavor. Then a long zip from my Dutch oven tote bag. I pulled out my cast iron like I was unveiling a relic from the lost age of men who cook outdoors. There's that shameful pride in pulling out a Dutch oven for all to see in a, "let me show you amateurs how a real man does this!" A little later I fired up the twelve inch camp cast iron Dutch oven for the Cantina Jack Chicken recipe. The aromas drifted out. Steam was sneaking from the lid like it was trying to escape and start a new life. The smell was so good I almost felt like I was causing the neighboring campers to develop an identity crisis. Once the Cantina Jack Chicken was cooking good, I pulled out the eight inch for a cake dessert I'd been working on. That's when things shifted. Not dramatically, but just enough that my brain started misfiring like a lawn mower that skipped its warm up prayer. I needed to calculate the coal count for my little Dutch oven. Easy math. My math. My domain. But suddenly the number eight was slippery. Twice eight? How many on top? How many on bottom? Why was this so hard? I thought I asked the question in my head. I did not. My wife looked up at me with her classic "why are you asking me math questions" face, but this time, with a bonus eyebrow. I realized I said that out loud. "What's two times eight?" Then I answered myself... out loud. She walked over and gave me a suspicious once over left, right, up and then down to that almost empty glass of beer in my hand. I pulled it back, thinking she was about to steal my last sip of this awesomeness. The beer can still sat on the table. She inspected the label and then she said, "Oh, no wonder." It took about five seconds for my brain to receive that message. When it finally did, it whispered, "Buddy, you're a sip away from finishing sixteen ounces of a fifteen percenter." Oh, that explained my sudden inability to count to sixteen. I went back to trying to assemble my desert. Trying to focus, trying to remember why bananas and pineapple were fighting each other in my bowl. What I meant to say. "Why am I having so much trouble making this banana and pineapple dessert?" What came out was, "Why am I having so much trouble making this bananapapple dessert?" My wife started laughing so hard she nearly dropped her own beer. Then she hit that silent wheeze stage where you wonder if you should intervene or just let nature take its course. And that, friends, is how the Bananapapple Cake got its name. Not from creativity, not from tropical inspiration, but from a beer so strong it temporarily unplugged my third grade multiplication table, while Cantina Jack Chicken simmered nearby, judging me. The Beer and Iron's Bananapapple Cake. This cake does beautifully in a ten inch or eight inch camp cast iron Dutch oven in the camp. At home, reach for your 10.25 inch skillet, generally recognized as your #8 skillet. A bit of cast iron trivia: How did an odd size skillet measuring 10.25 inches end up with a #8 designation? A 10.25 inch skillet is called the #8 because it was originally sized to fit a #8 stove eye opening not because of its diameter. A stove eye opening is the round hole on the top surface of a wood burning or early gas stove top, the kind with a removable circular plates you lifted off with a little hooked tool. Stay tuned! I'll save more of this trivia for later podcasts. Printable recipes and steps are at beerandiron.com. NO accounts are required and NO nonsense. I don't like that stuff either. I'm going to present this recipe as if I'm cooking it in a #8 skillet; my 10.25 inch skillet. Other than the charcoal briquette count versus the in-home oven temperature, there's really no differences in this recipe. This recipe has two easy parts: 1) the cake itself and 2) the icing on the cake. Literally! Start with the icing. We begin with the icing because the butter needs time to soften. Plus, we'll need an extra tablespoon of butter to smear inside that skillet. Set out your 10.25 inch skillet, your #8. Toss in a tablespoon of butter and let the butter and skillet get acquainted. Let the butter get to room temperature. Don't preheat the skillet or the butter. We just need it soft. In a small mixing bowl, add another one tablespoon of butter, separate from the tablespoon sitting over there in our skillet. This tablespoon of butter you'll need to melt or at least have very very soft. Add one and a half cups of powdered sugar, somewhat sifted. Usually what I'll do is scoop it up in that measuring cup and shake it around a little bit, just to get it level, and call it good. Three tablespoons of beer. And that's where our beer is going to come from in this recipe. If you're enjoying a fifteen percent porter from an innocent looking can, go ahead and use a splash of that. Just don't use a bitter beer. Choose something with a low IBU. Something may be on the sweet side. What's I B U? International Bitters Unit. It tells you how hoppy or how bitter your beer is. The icing only has three ingredients. I like to mix these lightly now. This way the butter can soften more. Later we'll mix it again before we pour it over our cake. For creating the cake, mix the wet ingredients. In a mixing bowl, combine one half cup of crushed pineapple, two beaten eggs, vanilla, oil, one to two smashed bananas. Get this all mixed up real well. Two quick notes. Pineapple: use crushed pineapple from a can. I usually leave it undrained but not too liquidy. The pineapple settles in the can, leaving a puddle of sweet juice on top. Poor little that excess juice off before you measure a half cup of crushed pineapple. Bananas: you can leave them in small chunks for those flavor bombs. Or you can mash them up smooth so every bite tastes like it came from the same party. Butter and sugar that skillet. Go back to your #8 skillet. Using your hand, smear that tablespoon of butter around on the inside of that skillet. Really coat it well. That butter is going to be our "welcome mat" for that cake batter. It's also going to be the "boot" when it's time for that cake to leave that skillet. This recipe calls for one cup of granulated sugar. On top of that smeared in butter in that skillet, pour that whole cup of sugar into that buttered skillet. Tilt and rotate that skillet like you're moving around a marble in one of those 1970s held hand puzzle boards. Let gravity move that sugar down and around the sides. A thin layer of sugar will stick to that buttered surface. The rest of that sugar will just stay loose in the bottom. Perfect. That's the sugar we're going to mix into our batter. The sugar that sticks to the butter becomes both the non-stick barrier and a sweet, crackly crust. I like doing it this way because even though we're using less sugar on the inside of the cake, the sugar on the crust hits your taste buds first and it fires them dudes off like your tongue just walked into a surprise angel choir flashmob singing "Hallelujah!!" Now mix the dry ingredients. In a second separate bowl. Dump the remaining sugar from the skillet. Give the skillet a couple of love taps to make sure all the loose sugar falls out. Then, along with that sugar, add your flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and walnuts or pecans (if you'd like your cake to talk back to you). I like to blend all my dry and wet ingredients separately to keep from firing off that baking soda too soon. It'll start working quickly once we add the wet stuff. Now's a good time to preheat your oven. Preheat to 350°F Fahrenheit, or 175°C and Celsius. Now combine and bake. Mix your wet and dry ingredients together. Pour the batter into your buttered and sugared #8 skillet. Place the skillet in the oven and bake it for about 45 - 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Once your cake is done baking, pull it out of the oven and let it set and rest for about 10 to 20 minutes. This will give time for it to cool. It'll give time for it to shrink and pull away from the edges of that skillet. If you try to pull it out too soon, it's gonna break. Give it a bit of resting time while you finish that beer you've been enjoying. After about 10 to 20 minutes, remove the cake from the skillet. Run a spatula around the edges of the skillet to loosen it up, just to make sure. Now comes the big question: will it stick or will it break? Don't just toss that cake out onto a cooling rack. That'll cause breakage due to the motion and less likely due to stickage. You'll need to coach it out. Give it a short step rather than a crash landing. Place a cooling rack or a plate over the top of that skillet and using both hands... one in an oven mitt and one holding on to that rack... turn the skillet upside down. The cake should pop out and land top side down, bottom side - sugary side - up on the rack or plate. Let the cake cool to a "warm" temperature. Well, unless you want to eat it hot and steamy, which is delicious! Especially with ice cream. Now ice the cake. Give the icing in one more mixing. You can pour the icing over the whole cake and get what you get, but you can't throw a fit. Or you can slice the cake and add the icing on the plate. Me? I like the icing on the plate. Mama always said "When at a party, be polite. Never take the first piece or the last piece." Fine, I'll take the second piece and I'll add my icing on the plate. That icing is probably going to run out before the last piece is served anyway. Yes, we did enjoy our Bananapapple Cake that night in camp after our Cantina Jack Chicken supper. Our friends with the music must have eventually found our playlist. Better good music than an angry mob. Unless, well, unless they're playing the greatest hits from Cousin Merle's Midnight Jug Band Revival. We went to bed happy and full. The wind? Oh, it came! Like a freight train in the night. Blowing like a cowboy trying to whistle with a mouth full of jerky. Didn't bother me at all. Tent shifted this way and that. But yeah, I slept like a baby. Still blowing. The next morning too! Huh? Now if I could only remember my measurements for that banana and pineapple cake? "You mean your Bananapapple Cake? I wrote them down." She's a good wife. Now for a post story note: Truth is, I do support responsible drinking. Absolutely! I drink beer to enjoy the flavors and the moment, not the intoxication. I like a beer or maybe a couple of beers, but I know this: beer's not like money. More is not always better. And if this camp trip taught me anything, it's this: If you've got to do math while drinking beer, check that ABV first. I'm probably preaching to the choir. Y'all know what I mean? Y'all are my people! And there you go. The Bananapapple Cake is yours to try and enjoy. Now y'all don't be strangers. Y'all let me know how yours turns out at beerandiron.com and join the conversation. Remember, at Beer and Iron, we're all about the hops, heat, and hearty laughs! Until we gather again, keep the tradition toasty and the brews bubbly. Cheers from Beer and Iron!