Cooking With Beer – Maple Barrel-Aged Brigadeiros | Springdale Beer Co

Posted September 6, 2017

Maple Barrel-Aged Brigadeiros

With a texture akin to a soft chocolate caramel, this popular Brazilian candy was the inspiration for our original Brigadeiro beer, brewed with coffee, lactose, and cocoa nibs. Framingham MA, where the Barrel Room is located, has a vibrant Brazilian community and though you can buy these at any bakery in town, they are lovely made at home with the addition of beer!

Many Brazilian desserts feature sweetened condensed milk due to the importance of both sugarcane and dairy as main agricultural products.

Though the original recipe calls for just sweetened condensed milk, cocoa and butter, these days myriad flavor combinations are popular. This recipe highlights the sweet maple and chocolate notes of the beer, while the coffee and toasty vanilla notes from the bourbon barrels give balance to what can normally be a rather sweet candy. Adding extra maple enhances the delicate flavor.

We recommend using real chocolate sprinkles for this recipe.

Yield: About 45 ¼-ounce candies.

Total prep time: 30 min

Total time: 1 hour

Recipe:

1 14-oz can sweetened condensed milk

1/3 cup real maple syrup (do not substitute pancake syrup)

2/3 cup Springdale Maple Barrel-Aged Brigadeiro Beer

3 Tbs unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted

1 Tbs unsalted butter

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup real chocolate sprinkles (often found in bulk sections of better supermarkets)

Method:

Cover a cookie sheet with parchment paper; spray with cooking spray. Place sprinkles in medium-sized bowl.

In a 12-inch nonstick sauté pan, off heat add sweetened condensed milk and sift cocoa into the milk.

Stir with a heat-safe rubber spatula until totally combined. (There may be a few lumps of cocoa, this is ok.)

With heat on low, add butter, beer, maple syrup and vanilla and stir to combine. The beer may foam up; turn down heat until it subsides.

With heat on medium low, stir constantly, making sure to scrape around the edges and bottom of pan, for about 12 minutes. Mixture will begin to thicken. Lower heat slightly and continue to stir constantly for an additional 15 minutes. Mixture will become glossy, continue to thicken, and begin to pull away from sides of the pan.

Carefully pour mixture onto prepared cookie sheet and cool in fridge for 20 minutes or at room temperature until cool to the touch. Once cool, it should be possible to roll the candy with greased hands into ¼-ounce bite-size balls. Once rolled, swirl balls in sprinkles until coated and place in small paper candy cups to serve.

Finished candies can be kept at room temperature 2 days or about a week in the fridge. (If they last that long.)

Note: If the mixture is still too sticky after cooling completely, you can add it back to the pan and continue to cook on low for several minutes more until it thickens. Cool and proceed to roll.

Mixture should pull away from bottom of pan and a spoon will leave a trail when candy is ready.