Manhattan Cupcakes

Last year for a friend's birthday cocktail party, we decided to combine the two best things about birthdays - cake and drinking - by making these gin and tonic cupcakes.

This year we wanted to turn that brilliant idea into a tradition. The only problem is that there's a dearth of cocktail cupcake recipes out there -- only these few from Baking Bites seemed up to our standards, and even they are pretty mainstream. Our bag is classic cocktails, and we really wanted to try something a little different. So we made it up.
The cocktail: Manhattan (2 oz whiskey, 1/2 oz sweet vermouth, 2 dashes Angostura bitters, shaken and strained, garnished with orange peel and a maraschino cherry). The origin recipe: Burnt-Butter Brown Sugar Cupcakes Now, our recipe isn't perfect yet, so we're looking for another excuse to make these and tweak them a bit. They don't have quite as strong a whiskey flavor as we're looking for, but they're delicious nonetheless.


1 stick unsalted butter
3/4 cup self-rising cake flour
3 Tablespoons sugar
5 Tablespoons light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 Tablespoons whiskey

1 tbsp milk (in the future, we're thinking of substituting whiskey here too)

Preheat the oven to 400F and start burning your butter. Put it in a small saucepan on medium heat, stirring all the time until it turns dark golden color. Take the pan off the heat and let the butter solidify, but stay soft.

When the butter is solid but still soft, put all the cake ingredients except the whiskey and milk in a food processor or blender and blend to a smooth batter. Add the whiskey and milk down the funnel, pulsing sparingly to form a soft, dropping mixture.

Divide among lined cupcake tins, and cook for 15-20 minutes for regular-size cupcakes, 8-10 for mini.

We used a basic cream cheese frosting to top these (buttercream would be too much, well, butter for these cakes) with one little difference: sweet vermouth. That's an integral part of a Manhattan, and we were pretty excited about figuring it into the cupcakes. However, it turns out that the vermouth makes the frosting too sweet, so it's best to leave it out until we do a little more research.

Frost the cupcakes and top with just a little orange zest and a sliver of maraschino cherry.

And if anyone knows of any cocktail baked good recipes, or a way to figure in bitters, please send them our way.

Spiced Rum Cider

 

There are plenty of recipes out there for spiced cider, but this one has been the most successful. We served it at our "pre-thanksgiving thanksgiving" party and someone actually named it as what she was thankful for this year! Not to mention that we ran out of the spiced cider, which is probably the best endorsement you can get for a drink.

Our version is based on this Emeril Lagasse recipe. If you ask us (please, don't email us; it's a figure of speech), Lagasse uses way too much sugar. Cider is sweet enough, and you want to be able to taste the rum. Below is our edit of his recipe.

Ingredients

• 1 apple, studded with whole cloves (it should look like the Hellraiser of apples)

• 1 orange, thinly sliced
• 1 gallon apple cider (don't be fooled by recipes that call for less, you'll need this much)
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons allspice
• Plenty of grated nutmeg
• Sailer Jerry spiced rum (We got this suggestion from Lukas, and it's the perfect rum for the recipe.)
• Cinnamon sticks for garnish

Directions
In a pot, combine the studded apple and other ingredients, except for the rum. Slowly bring to a simmer over low heat. Simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from the heat. Ladle into mugs and garnish each with a cinnamon stick. Let the drinker choose their own amount of rum (it's the giving season, after all).

whiskey sour

So I'm not a huge mixed drinks fan, but I love me my whiskey and this is my favorite way to drink it. The method is to grab a tall glass, pour a few fingers worth of whiskey, fill glass to brim with ice. Add sour mix to just short of brim, leave room for a handful of frozen fruit. Add straw, stir and enjoy.

Italian Blood Orange Champagne Cocktail

MMMMMmmmmmmm Bubbles!!!

Ingredients:

• 1/2 shot of Grey Goose or other premium vodka (1 shot if the sun has set)
• 1/3 cup of Trader Joes Italian Blood Orange Soda
• 1 cup mid-premium champagne (cava or the American stuff works as well)
• 2-3 Kumquats for a garnish
• 2-3 Frozen strawberries

Directions:

1. Find 16oz - 20oz glass
2. Add Italian Blood Orange Soda to glass
3. Add Vodke to glass
4. Dump 1/4 of champagne in glass with enough force that bubbles mix things up a bit
5. Slowly pour in the rest of champagne and garnish with your fruit

Commentary:
I think this is the best champagne drink I have had in a while!!! It is nicely tart and fully of bubbles....yummmmmm. I am on my second as we speak and it only gets better! If you like your drinks sweeter I think a splash of grenadine or some OJ will do the trick. Oh I have to thank eSecLending for the wonderful glass and the opportunity to make this drink at 4pm in the afternoon....ha. I hope you all enjoy!!

Almond macaroons and Cherry Heering drinks

Never before have we memorized a recipe just by making it once, but without even trying we've committed these to memory, mostly because almost all the ingredients have the same measurements. It's great to have a super simple cookie/bar in your arsenal, and this one is so good that we immediately filed it away in our culinary memory bank. It's the first thing we've made from The Cake Club by Susie Quick, and we'll be returning to that book for more of her Southern specialties.

Macaroon seems kind of like a misnomer, since these don't have any coconut in them. But if you wanted to top them with some shredded coconut along with the almonds, it would probably be pretty great.

Almond Macaroons

¾ c (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter

1 ½ c sugar

2 large eggs (maybe because 1 1/2 eggs doesn't exist?)

1 ½ c flour

pinch of salt

1 tsp almond extract

½ c sliced almonds

Preheat oven to 350 and line a 10-inch skillet with foil, leaving a few inches over the sides to lift the cookies out. Combine everything but the almonds in a bowl, stirring with a wooden spoon. Spread the batter evenly on the bottom of the skillet. Scatter almonds over the top and sprinkle with about 2 tsp sugar.

Bake for 30 minutes or until lightly browned. Let cool in the skillet for 5 minutes, then remove and cut them into cookies. You could also use a biscuit cutter or heart cookie cutter to make these into nice shapes. They’ll be pretty soft, but thick enough to eat anyway. You could probably just make these in a baking pan, which would make it easier to cut them into squares.

Along with these, we tried a couple drinks with Cherry Heering, a cherry liquor that has a nice flavor, but won't take the paint off the walls (we're looking at you, Maraschino liquor).

The Cherry Cobbler: 4 parts gin, 1 tsp sugar, 1 part Cherry Heering, 1 part Chambord, 1 part lemon juice. Add soda and a slice of lemon if you like. This is a big drink but really the Chambord

combines with the Heering to give it a cough syrup texture (the technical term is mouthfeel but there’s no not-pervy way to say that).

For some more enjoyable mouthfeel (rim shot), check out The Hunter (2 parts Rye Whiskey and 1 part Cherry Heering), good for warming up after a long day of chasing big game, or The Hot Shot (juice of a ¼ lime, 2 parts light run, 1 part heering), a slightly tropical cocktail that still packs a punch. Drink it with a jet engine hot dog, perhaps?

Trail Mix Muffins and Sloe Gin

In preparation for a late-winter snowstorm (and we former scouts have learned to always be prepared), we holed ourselves up with some Trail Mix Muffins, a hike-worthy muffin variation from Baking Bites. It's a different flavor than some of the more ordinary muffins.

Trail Mix Muffins (yields 24)

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 cup rolled oats (plain oatmeal)

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt
2 large eggs

2 cups buttermilk

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups trail mix

*You can use any kind of trail mix you want, so we used a combination of three.  That means our muffins are full of peanuts, almonds, cashews, cranberries, raisins, golden raisins, chocolate chips, yogurt chips, and sunflower seeds.  It's a mouthful, but we like being inclusive.  Coconut would also be pretty delicious here.

Preheat oven to 400F. Line two 12-cup muffin tins with paper liners. 
In a large bowl, whisk together flour, oats, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
 In a medium bowl, whisk together eggs, buttermilk, vegetable oil and vanilla extract.  Pour into dry ingredients and mix until just combined.  Stir in trail mix.
 Divide batter evenly into prepared muffin cups. Each cup will be about 3/4 full.
 Bake for 15 minutes, or until muffins are golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center of each comes out clean.
 Cool on a wire rack.

These would be perfect to make for a quick breakfast treat, since we usually have most of these ingredients in our kitchens anyway.  They're extremely unique, with a different flavor in every bite, and we really like that.  Even the sunflower seeds don't get lost in the taste.  It's a little like eating bird food, and we mean that in the best way possible. 

If by some chance we can't finish all of these before they get stale, we're all set to turn them into muffin biscotti, also courtesy of Baking Bites.

(We meant to illustrate how the muffin explodes with Trail Mix flavor, but doesn't it just look like it threw up?)

While we were baking, outside the apartment the snow started falling for what we'd been warned would be New York's worst storm of the winter. Sloe Gin Fizzes may not seem apropos for a blizzard, but Shake would disagree. A few years ago, before the cocktail obsession, he waited out a storm at a Park Slope bar with a friend, drinking what the bartender had testified were "Sloe Gin Fizzes" -- a highball made of gin, Rose's Lime juice, and soda. They were good drinks (more like a Rickey) to have while contemplating the white streets outside, but nothing like a real Sloe Gin Fizz. Unlike regular gin, flavored with juniper and other herbs, sloe gin is a liqueur flavored with sloe (blackthorn) plums. With the snow coming down outside, it seemed like a good opportunity to correct that old error.  

We picked up a bottle of Plymouth Sloe Gin at the closing of the beloved Red Hook liquor store LeNell's. The first thing to try, of course, was the true Sloe Gin Fizz: combine 1 1/2 oz of sloe gin, 1 oz lemon juice, and 1 tsp sugar. Shake with ice and strain in a highball glass (or a mason jar, if you're classy). Fill with ice and soda. 

This goes down like a Jones Soda on a summer -- er, blustery March -- day.  Very light and sweet, it could almost be a brunch drink. The low alcohol content -- just 52 proof, not the usual 80+ of most spirits -- means you could be looking into a very long brunch.

The Sloe Gin Cocktail is just the opposite -- sweet and thick, with more of an alcoholic taste.  The taste isn't bad in and of itself, but the drink overall seems a bit like cough syrup.  If you've got a scratch in your throat and want to try it: 2 1/4 oz sloe gin, 1/4 oz dry vermouth, dash orange bitters, stirred with ice and strained into a cocktail glass.

Similar but better is the Tip Toe Cocktail, which is helped by a bit of lemon juice.  Mix 1 1/2 oz sloe gin, 1/2 oz dry vermouth, 1/2 oz lemon juice with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

Oscar cookies

We scoured cookbooks for days trying to find a nice, elegant-looking cookie appropriate for an Oscar party. The fare in The Art of the Dessert was too intense for a night of watching TV; the morsels in our easy cookie book, too simple. So we took it upon ourselves to combine two elements from our old standby, The Weekend Baker. The cookies are an easy standalone recipe and the glaze is from the Chocolate-Dipped Macadamia Brittle therein (but that's another post). The result is a cookie that takes no time at all and tastes as nice as it looks.

Toasted Almond Cookies
12 tbsp unsalted butter (at room temperature)
1/2 c sugar
pinch of salt
1 yolk from a large egg
3/4 tsp vanilla
1/8 tsp almond extract
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup slivered almonds

1. Preheat the oven to 350 and toast the almonds -- spread them in 1 layer on a baking sheet and bake until fragrant and just turning brown, around 8 min. Be careful, because they'll keep toasting even when you remove them. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

2. In a large bowl, beat butter, sugar, and salt on medium until well blended. Add the egg yolk, vanilla, and almond extract and beat until combined. Pour in the flour and almonds and beat on low until the dough clumps together and looks like, well, dough.

3. Spoon these in little balls onto prepared baking sheet, about 1 1/2 inches apart. Press down with your fingers to flatten them a bit and bake one sheet at a time, about 17 minutes (until the edges are golden and the tops are dry). Place the sheet on a rack and let them cool for about 10 minutes.


Chocolate Glaze
3 oz semi-sweet baker's chocolate, chopped
3 tbsp butter
(if you want them really chocolatey, up each of these to four)

1. Melt the butter and chocolate in a double boiler (aka, a metal bowl on top of a pot of boiling water) or the microwave, if you're feeling less fancy. Microwave for about 15 seconds at a time and then stir so the chocolate doesn't burn. You'll only need to do this for about 30 seconds.

2. Dip half of a cookie into the chocolate and place on wax paper or parchment. Let these set -- they'll go faster and be less likely to melt if you put them in the fridge. Sift some powdered sugar on top for a finished look.

Drink-wise, we wanted to try some variation on the Champagne Cocktail. Champagne seems like the obvious choice for an Oscars party, but when you're tightening your budget and opting for $5 bottles of Andre you need to add something extra to spruce up the drink. We opted for the Chicago Cocktail --well, something like it. We skipped the Angostura bitters and didn't have any orange bitters on hand, which would have been perfect. Instead we measured 2 parts cognac to 1 part orange curacao, added champagne. and called it a night.

And by "called it a night" we mean "Who won Best Picture again?"

Winter foods and winter booze

After a few weeks of holiday gluttony, we decided to skip the baking this week and go with a soup. Of course, this simple pasta e fagioli from this Rao’s cookbook is probably of questionable health value. But it’s still winter outside, so it’s a start.

Ingredients

½ pound ditalini pasta (we couldn’t find ditalini, even at the Italian deli, so we went with fusilli)2 19-oz cans cannelloni beans, undrained
¼ c olive oil
2 minced garlic cloves½ tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper
½ c reserved pasta water
grated Pecorino Romano cheese
extra virgin olive oil

Cook pasta, as always, in salted water. Meanwhile, puree 1 can of the beans and set aside. Heat the oil in a pot, then add the garlic and sauté until slightly golden. Add the pureed beans, salt, and pepper. Bring to a boil, add the second can of beans, and let simmer until the pasta is done. Then drain the pasta, but keep ½ cup of the water. Add that water and the pasta to the beans and stir. Serve it up, drizzle with olive oil and top with grated cheese.

This is a pretty basic soup and simple to make, but very filling and can easily be a meal instead of an appetizer. There’s a lot of flavor here, probably because everything is cooked with garlic olive oil. It’s good as-is, but we’re considering adding sausage next time.

Drinkwise, we also wanted something to warm us up after the weekend snowstorm. So we decided to stick with the Italian theme and try Italian Tea a.k.a. the Skier’s Smoothie. It’s a pretty basic drink, just a shot of Galliano, hot tea, and lemon as desired. It doesn’t make sense to call this drink Italian Tea, since our bottle of this Italian-made liqueur bears a label saying “Product of France.” But given that we also used the British tea PG Tips, this is really a multinational brew.

We’ve had Galliano ever since an attempt to try Harvey Wallbangers (about which the less said, the better) about a year ago, and never really found a drink we liked with this herbal liqueur. But it’s perfect when combined with a strong black tea and a slice of lemon. Simple, but the Skier’s Smoothie a good choice when you’re not in the mood for an Irish coffee.

Pumpkin Pie Jello Shots

For a pot-luck party we decided to save time and combine the dessert and the cocktail together. Though most of us equate "Jell-O Shots" with "Fraternity Hazing" these are much more adult. Of course, no one ever said adults don't do shots...

Pumpkin Pie Jell-O Shots

from Tasting Table

1 or 2 Crumbled Graham crackers
1 envelope Knox gelatin
1/3 cup canned pumpkin
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/8 teaspoon allspice
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
Pinch of ground nutmeg
1/2 cup vodka
1/2 tablespoon cold heavy cream
Fresh whipped cream, for serving

1. Arrange the mini cupcake cups on a baking sheet. Place 1 cup cold water in the top of a double boiler and sprinkle the gelatin over the top. Let stand for three minutes.
2. Heat the gelatin mixture over a gentle simmer until the granules have dissolved. Add the pumpkin, sugar and spices and heat, stirring occasionally, until the pumpkin and sugar are completely melted. Remove from heat and cool for 30 minutes.

3. In a medium bowl, combine the vodka with 1/4 cup cold water and the heavy cream. Whisk in the pumpkin mixture and immediately divide it among the cupcake cups. Chill until firm, at least 4 hours. Sprinkle each with crumbled Graham crackers, top with whipped cream and serve.

Cinnamon Rolls, Eau de Vie and Limoncello

We're big fans of breakfast for dinner, so tonight we opted for cinnamon rolls. These come from Cook's Illustrated, so you know they're perfect.

Filling:

3/4 c packed dark brown sugar

1/4 c granulated sugar

2 tbsp ground cinnamon

1/8 tsp ground cloves

1/8 tsp salt

1 tbsp butter, melted

Dough:

2 1/2 c flour

2 tbsp sugar

1 1/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/4 c buttermilk

6 tbsp butter, melted and cooled

Since you're going to use 8 tbsp of butter anyway, melt a whole stick now and take out one spoon at a time whenever you need it. Preheat the oven to 425 and move a rack to the upper middle position. Coat a round cake pan with 1 tbsp melted butter.

For the filling: Combine sugars, spices, and salt in a small bowl. Add 1 tbsp butter and stir with a fork until it all looks like wet sand. Set aside.

For the dough: whisk flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in large bowl. Separately, whisk the buttermilk and 2 tbsp butter in a measuring cup. Add the liquid to the dry ingredients and stir until liquid is absorbed (about 30 sec). Transfer to a floured surface and knead until soft.

Pat the dough with your hands into a 9 x 12 inch rectangle. Brush the dough with 2 tbsp of butter and top with the filling*, leaving a 1/2-inch border of dough around the edges. Pat the filling lightly into the dough. Roll the dough from the long side up, pressing lightly, to form a log and pinch the seam to seal.

Cut into pieces (the book suggests 8, but ours were a little narrow so we cut more, smaller slices), dust them with the remaining 2 tbsp of butter and fit into prepared cake pan. Bake for 23-25 min. Cool and enjoy.

There is a recipe for icing with cream cheese, buttermilk, and powdered sugar, but we skipped it. These don't need to be any sweeter than they already are, but you can dust a little powdered sugar or whipped cream over the top.

These cinnamon rolls were great, but the standout of our evening was long-form vodka preparation. Tonight was the fateful night that our months of toiling came to fruition (pun intended) in the form of limoncello.

This drink probably takes longer than anything else we've made. But it's worth it. Like K + J's apple and cinnamon infused vodka, it takes fairly basic vodka and makes it something much more amazing. The only problem is that once you taste it you realize you haven't made enough.

Limoncello is an Italian, lemon-flavored liqueur. To make it yourself, first buy some 100-proof Vodka (we used Smirnoff, just because it's what we found first). Then peel the skins off 10 lemons per bottle (we made two bottles). Be careful to only peel off only the yellow skin, and not the white pith beneath, which will make your liqueur bitter (it is basically impossible to avoid all pith, but keep it in mind). Take all these peels and stuff them into the bottle of vodka.

Now here's the hard part: take these bottles of vividly colored liquor and hide them away for 2 to 3 months. This is a long time, we admit. But it's worth it.

At the end of your dry period, open the bottle up and take a whiff. It should smell great, a lot like a lemonhead candy. Pour the liquid into a bowl.

Because neither lemons nor high-proof alcohol are sweet, you're going to want to add some simple syrup. Dissolve some sugar (demerara, preferably) into an equal amount of water on the stove and then let it cool. Add the simple syrup to the raw limoncello, tasting constantly (as if you weren't already) until it has achieved the right amount of sweetness. We used less than a cup of simple syrup for each bottle. The darker color comes from the Demerara sugar, so if you're planning to give this drink as a gift then you should use white sugar to keep the color bright yellow.

Traditionally, limoncello is served as an ice cold shot. But we shook it up with ice and added a cherry. It would also go great with a little club soda or sparkling water.

Now, originally we hadn't planned on making eau de vie. The term refers to almost any fruit-infused brandy. Since we used vodka ours wasn't technically a true eau de vie, but we don't think anyone drinking it will complain.

When you make the limoncello, the lemon peels are going to displace some of the vodka, which you'll have to pour out. Have another glass container handy, and just pour this extra alcohol over a few sliced pieces of fruit (including the skins). We used plums.

After six weeks (or two months, if you're forgetful like we are) you can add more simple syrup to taste. For us, at least, we didn't end up adding any sugar, and we ended up with a sweet, fragrant liquor.

*We forgot to brush the dough with butter before adding the filling, but all that happened is that a tiny bit more filling fell out than it otherwise would have. No matter, it caramelized on the bottom of the pan, so a couple of our rolls were on a crunchy bed of something like cinnamon rock candy - awesome.

Happy Repeal Day!

Today is when we celebrate the end of one of the darkest, driest periods of American history. That's right, today is the 75th anniversary of the end of Prohibition. Check out more history of Repeal Day here. 

So tonight, please raise a glass and make a toast. In the immortal words of Homer Simpson: "To alcohol! The cause of... and solution to... all of life's problems."

Riesling ice cream and wine coolers

Wine Month – Riesling

We tried out Fritz Windisch Selzer Osterberg 2006 Riesling. It’s a very sweet, florid and fruity Riesling with notes of honey, sweeter than many of the others that we’ve had previously. However, we only learned this after drinking it; the purchase was made solely because the label looks the most German.

German wine doesn't get a whole lot of play, so we feel compelled to give a shout out to Gewürztraminer, another sweet white, mostly because it's fun to say (ge-VURTZ-tra-mee-ner).

We're big fans of the Wine Cellar sorbets (thought not the $8+ per pint price tag), so when we found this recipe for Riesling ice cream it seemed like the perfect desert with which to celebrate wine month. Riesling ice cream sounds like it should be difficult, but in actuality only has a few ingredients and the prep goes pretty quickly. We used this recipe from Epicurious but opted out of the anise cookies, because anise is gross.

• 1 1/2 cups cream
  
• 1/2 cup half and half
  
• 2/3 cup sugar
  
• 4 large egg yolks
  
• 1 cup late harvest Riesling wine

Bring 1/2 cup cream and 1/2 cup half and half to simmer in heavy medium saucepan. Whisk sugar and yolks in medium bowl to blend. Whisk in hot cream mixture. Return mixture to saucepan; stir over medium-low heat until custard thickens and leaves path on back of spoon when finger is drawn across, about 4 minutes, do not boil. Strain into bowl. Mix in wine and 1 cup cream. Chill custard until cold.

Process custard in ice cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions. Transfer to covered container (ice cream will be soft) and freeze. (Can be prepared 1 week ahead.)

After trying this, we realized that we should just make our own frozen wine treats and save the money. The ice cream is great - sweet and very creamy, much more so than the Wine Cellar sorbet. It tastes strongly of the Riesling (in a good way) and keeps the fruitiness of the wine, with a buttery aftertaste. A little sprinkle of cinnamon is a nice compliment.

In addition to making a wine ice cream, we tried some cocktails too. If this wine seemed easy to sip on its own, in a mixed drink it became downright gulpable.

The first drink we tried was like juice for adults. It’s called the Hot Springs:

• 1 ½ oz wine
  
• 1/2 oz pineapple juice
  
• ¼ oz maraschino liqueur
  
• dash orange bitters

Shake and strain into a cocktail glass. We added a maraschino cherry.

This drink was gone in the blink of an eye. The usual cocktail packs a few ounces of high-proof spirits that slows most tipplers down. But the Hot Springs is sweet and simple as a country lass, and just as easy:

The second drink we tried was also easy but not nearly so tasty. We tried making our own White Wine Cooler. Just dissolve ½ tsp of superfine sugar in soda, add wine and ice. This drink could also be called Blasé Blanc. Watered down, sweet, and fizzy, we could bottle this up and sell it to teenagers. Hm, without Zima there is a hole in the market…

100 Drinks before You Die

image borrowed from here.


Over at Art of Drink is a great post about the 100 liquids you should try before you drop dead. In bold are the ones below Shake has tried, (Kopi Luwak is an infamous coffee bean -- first eaten and excreted by a weasel-type creature, then the beans are "harvested" from the spoor. Perhaps I will just aim for trying 99 of these potables.)

List of Drinks You Must Try Before You Expire:

Manhattan Cocktail
Kopi Luwak (Weasle Coffee)
French / Swiss Absinthe
Rootbeer
Gin Martini
Sauternes
Whole Milk
Tequila (100% Agave)
XO Cognac
Espresso
Spring Water (directly from the spring)
Gin & Tonic
Mead
Westvleteren 12 (Yellow Cap) Trappist Ale
Chateau d’Yquem
Budweiser
Maraschino Liqueur
Mojito
Orgeat
Grand Marnier
Mai Tai (original)
Ice Wine (Canadian) --technically the one I had was from northern New York State, I believe
Red Bull
Fresh Squeezed Orange Juice
Bubble Tea
Tokaji
Chicory
Islay Scotch
Pusser’s Navy Rum
Fernet Branca --though I meant to try this the other night, I sadly went with Listerine's cousin, Brance Menta
Fresh Pressed Apple Cider
Bourbon
Australian Shiraz
Buckley’s Cough Syrup
Orange Bitters
Margarita (classic recipe)
Molasses & Milk
Chimay Blue
Wine of Pines (Tepache)
Green Tea
Daiginjo Sake
Chai Tea
Vodka (chilled, straight)
Coca-Cola
Zombie (Beachcomber recipe)
Barley Wine
Brewed Choclate (Xocolatl)
Pisco Sour
Lemonade
Speyside Single Malt
Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee
Champagne (Vintage)
Rosé (French)
Bellini
Caipirinha
White Zinfandel (Blush)
Coconut Water
Cerveza
Cafe au Lait
Ice Tea
Pedro Ximenez Sherry
Vintage Port
Hot Chocolate
German Riesling
Pina Colada
El Dorado 15 Year Rum
Chartreuse
Greek Wine
Negroni
Jägermeister
Chicha
Guiness
Rhum Agricole
Palm Wine
Soju
Ceylon Tea (High Grown)
Belgian Lambic
Mongolian Airag
Doogh, Lassi or Ayran
Sugarcane Juice
Ramos Gin Fizz
Singapore Sling
Mint Julep
Old Fashioned
Perique
Jenever (Holland Gin)
Chocolate Milkshake
Traditional Italian Barolo
Pulque
Natural Sparkling Water
Cuban Rum
Asti Spumante
Irish Whiskey
Château Margaux
Two Buck Chuck
Screech
Akvavit
Rye Whisky
German Weissbier
Daiquiri (classic)

Obviously, I'm missing a lot from this list. How about you?

Lemon Firecracker cookies and Blue Hawaiians

This week we decided to deal with our election-day anxieties the only way we know how: baked goods and cocktails.

Our drink is the Blue Hawaiian, in honor of another Blue Hawaiian. It’s another tiki drink, though much simpler than the Zombie. Really it’s just a Pina Colada with a liberal (ha!) dose of Blue Curacao.

For the dessert, we thought about a Baked Alaska, but because we didn’t take the time to vet the recipe in advance we decided not to risk it (yes, this metaphor is a stretch). Instead we went for a spicy cookie that might fit better with Fourth of July than earlier November. But hey, sometimes we need a change.

Blue Hawaiian

Mount Gay, Bols, Boing? this drink has a lot of issues to work out.

• 1 oz. Light Rum
• 1 oz Blue Curacao
• 2 oz Pineapple Juice
• 1 oz Cream of Coconut

You can serve it straight up, over ice, or blended. We tried it straight up, which is delicious.

Lemon Firecrackers

• 2 sticks butter, softened
• 1/2 c sugar
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 2 tbsp grated lemon peel
• 1 egg
• 2 1/4 c flour
• 1 ts cayenne powder
• 1/4 ts salt
• 1/4 ts baking soda

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the lemon juice, lemon peel, and egg; beat well. Sift together the flour, cayenne powder, salt, and baking soda. Beat dry ingredients into the butter mixture. Drop dough by rounded tablespoons onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 8 minutes or until cookies are lightly browned.

This is a crumbly, light lemon cookie and the pepper gives a little explosion in the back of your mouth.

Vampire cookies and Zombie cocktails

Happy Halloween! With the recent popularity of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight franchise and HBO’s True Blood, it’s pretty obvious that vampires are everywhere. Including our kitchen. And when we came across this recipe from the Baking Bites blog for Vampire Cookies, we decided it was time to pay culinary tribute to tribute to the most ubiquitous, and sexiest, of all of the undead.

Ingredients:

• 1 ½ sticks of butter, softened
• ½ cup sugar
  
• 1 egg
  
• ½ tsp vanilla
  
• 1/8 tsp almond extract
  
• 1 ½ cups flour
  
• ¼ tsp salt
• approx. ½ cup red jelly (use any flavor but make sure it’s not chunky or seedy, kind of like what your mom used to put in your PB&Js)

In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light. Beat in egg and extracts.
Add flour and salt to the bowl and mix them into the butter-sugar mixture at low speed until dough is just combined.

Important to note, lest you begin baking late into the evening: Wrap dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

For your own Vampire Weekend (yeah, we went there): While you’re waiting, make some cocktails and watch an ivy league kid channel John Cusack and Robert Smith:

Preheat oven to 325F. Roll dough out on a lightly floured surface until it is about 1/8-inch thick. Use a cookie cutter to cut out 2-inch rounds.
Place rounds on a baking sheet, put a teaspoon of jam on each of them and cover with another round of dough. Press edges down lightly, pinching the edges onto the cookie sheet. Use a toothpick and poke two small holes (like a vampire bite) in the top of each cookie.


They look like little ghosts!

Here's the thing: this dough is damn nigh impossible to roll out. No matter how cold it was or how much flour we used, it still became a sticky mess on the rolling pin and our hands. We finally abandoned the cookie cutter method and rolled the dough into balls, then smushed them ourselves into little jelly pockets.

Bake for 10-12 minutes, until cookies are set.
Cool for about 5 minutes on the baking sheet, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
Dip a toothpick in some extra red jam and re-insert in the “bite” holes you made before baking to emphasize them, if not already red. Draw a blood trickle down from one of the bites with the jam, because that looks pretty badass.

The result was scary.

These expand a lot, some ending up completely flat, and they didn't end up looking how we hoped (see Baking Bites for a picture of our hopes). But if nothing else they are tasty, and the hot jam squirts into your mouth when you bite into the cookie, which is just the kind of vampire effect we were looking for.

Though they aren’t as sexy, zombies are also pretty popular:

The Zombie was created before WWII by Donn Beach, the man responsible for the popularization of tiki drinks in America. As the story goes, Beach served the first Zombie to a patron as a hangover cure. How did the drinker feel after? Like the living dead, of course. (For the longer version of the Don the Beachcomber story, plus other great details about rum in general, pick up Wayne Curtis’ And a Bottle of Rum.)

Like the Mai Tai and the rest of the tiki clan, the Zombie’s a massive combination of tropical fruit juices and liquor. And there are scores of recipes for it, all with their own tweaks. The basic gist of most of them is several types of rum, lime juice, pineapple or other tropical juice, often a shot of apricot brandy, then garnished with mint, powdered sugar and a float of 151-proof rum.

But for how much us New Yorkers like to boast about having everything at our fingertips, we weren’t able to find a few common ingredients. If you know where to find orgeat syrup or falernum in the city please tell us. Otherwise one of the upcoming posts will involve making our own falernum. We also opted out of the usual jigger of apricot brandy.

Despite skipping a few pieces, we still have a hell of a lot of ingredients:

There were so many recipes, all of them different from one another, that we improvised a bit. Here’s our first version:

• 1 1/2 oz Bacardi white rum
  
• 1 ½ oz Bacardi gold rum
  
• Dash Angostura bitters
  
• 1 oz Passion fruit nectar
  
• 1 oz Pineapple juice
  
• 1 oz Papaya juice
  
• ½ oz Pernod

Shake with ice and strain into a tall glass filled with ice. Top with a float of Bacardi 151, powdered sugar, mint sprig and fruit garnish (in our case papaya and pineapple).
For the number of bartender’s guides that call for it, we can’t understand why anyone would want this drink with Pernod. The liquorice aftertaste turns it from a tropical drink into something medicinal. In our second try, we skipped the Pernod and added a little maraschino liqueur and a smidge of superfine sugar.

Much better, but next time we'll probably add BRRAAAAAAINS...