Guinness, Chocolate, and Valentines day

Chocolate Guinness Cheesecake, I decided, would be the perfect gift for Valentines day. So one night (a few days ahead) I went out, got all the ingredients I needed, came back, and worked from about 9:30pm 'till 1:00am making the perfect cheesecake. Then the next day, I, in a round about fashion, discovered that cheesecake really wasn't the best choice, and that something, pretty much anything, else would be more appreciated. I wanted it to be a really nice gift, o that night I baked a second cake, this time a regular Chocolate Guinness Cake. Then on Valentines day....surprise! You have two cakes!

My first order of business with the cheesecake was the graham cracker crust. I spent quite a while crushing tiny teddy-bear shaped chocolate graham cracker cookies with a spoon. How I longed for a mortar and pestle! Later I was informed that I could have simply put them in the blender/in a plastic bag and crushed them, how ingenious!

My next challenge with the cheesecake arrive when I realized that I had, stupidly, forgotten to pick up a bottle opener. As the was supposed to be a Chocolate Guinness Cheesecake, this was a potentially fatal error. First I tried the "open a beer bottle with another beer bottle" trick...this proved to be a fail. So I turned to my trusty friend, the internet, and google. I discovered the fork method, a bit time consuming, but in the end, I had an open Guinness.

Otherwise, the baking process went pretty smoothly, and the end result was fantastic! The other cake I made also turned out well, though the taste of the Guinness was much less noticeable, probably because of the flour. This cake also turned out to be very dense, and thick (also a tad bit difficult to get out of the pan, I'd advise a spring form), but still quite good.
Recipes:
Chocolate Guinness Cheesecake
 Guinness Chocolate Cake
watch out with the Guinness Chocolate Cake...whoever wrote the recipe forgot to inculde the step where you add the sugar and chocolate!