I never would have thought that a cocktail could look like a bruise, but tonight I have succeeded in creating one. I don’t know if this is an accomplishment to be proud of, but here it is… the Black and Bloopy!
I bought this lovely little tub of Electric Lemonade Slush Mix from Tastefully Simple. Add water, vodka (I used Three Olives Loopy) and then stick it in the freezer. I did this a few weeks ago, and then promptly forgot about it. Then today happened, and today was one of those days that needs to end with a cocktail. After I hacked out enough to fill my glass I gave it a taste. Good but VERY sour! So I decided to add some grenadine for a little extra sweetness. The end result was a very good, although oddly colored alcoholic slushy.
This one is pretty easy! Buy some of this slush mix from your area Tastefully Simple rep (support your local business while you booze!), add water and the vodka of your choice per the instructions on the container and freeze! When serving, if you want your drink to look like its been in a bar fight drizzle in some grenadine.
I prefer jeans and sneakers to skirts and high heels. I have never (nor will I ever) worn a pair of stilettos. Your feet really aren’t meant to do that.
I would rather watch hockey than Dancing With the Stars. I was going to make NHL jersey cookies during the Stanley Cup playoffs this year. I had the cookies baked and everything, but I was too busy watching hockey to decorate them.
Me with Lord Stanley, many moons ago…
I’m not a fan of pink. I don’t scream at the sight of mice or spiders. I don’t get manicures unless I’m a bridesmaid in a wedding. I don’t spaz out when people bring their babies in to work.
I wasn’t even very girly when I was a little girl. Take my Barbie dolls for example. Yes, I had Barbies. No, they did not go shopping or go to fancy dances or get married to the perfectly coiffed Ken dolls. Barbie drowned in the Barbie pool. She hung herself from the second story of the Barbie house. Barbie fell to her death out the third story window of my actual house.
Barbie muerta (Photo credit: nicoventurelli)
Remember the Heart Family (Mommy, Daddy and two little toddlers – one boy, one girl) and the Heart Family car? They didn’t go for leisurely rides to the zoo. The Heart Family car was a plastic deathtrap on wheels hurtling down the stairs from my attic bedroom, smashing into the wall at the landing and sending Mr. and Mrs. Heart and their progeny flying in all directions.
The Heart Family – Kisses & Cuddles (Photo credit: Freddycat1)
I did have a heart shaped pillow with a picture of Dylan from 90210 (the ORIGINAL!!) on it and I like my cocktails sweet and fruity, so the girly-girl is somewhere there inside me – she just doesn’t come out that often.
I Love Dylan (Photo credit: emilydickinsonridesabmx)
Given all this, you can see why I would be amused by the fact that I have made not one, not two, but THREE girly baked treats in the past four days.
First up… Wedding Cake Cookies! A coworker’s daughter is getting married next weekend and she asked that I make cookies to put in the gift baskets she is making for their out of town guests.
Next, I attempted to make some hydrangea cupcakes I saw on Pinterest. For a tutorial on how to make these yourself, go here! These were to celebrate the birthday of one of my friends at work on Monday. They came out pretty good. When I was taking the photos my camera was choosing the flower macro setting, so at least I had Canon fooled.
Last but not least are the teapot cookies I made for my friend’s daughter’s Princess Tea Party 6th birthday shindig this weekend.
Okay, I’m gonna go blow up a Barbie doll or something…
Sometimes you have an idea about a certain cupcake flavor in your head but it can be difficult to find the right recipe. I don’t yet consider myself good enough to just completely whip something up on my own like the contestants on Cupcake Wars. Once, when I was a teenager I wanted to make microwave brownies but I didn’t have the cocoa called for in the recipe. I (mistakenly) thought I could use hot cocoa mix instead. Instead of gooey, chocolaty brownies I created the most foul-smelling thing to have ever come out of a microwave. So you can see why I don’t quite trust myself to just wing it.
A friend has asked that I make Rum and Coke cupcakes for her son’s 21st birthday coming up later in the month. Having never made them before, I wanted research some recipes and do a test batch. I found this recipe for Cola Cake, direct from the makers of Coca Cola themselves. I figured that would be a good place to start. I followed the recipe exactly, and then topped the cupcakes with a basic vanilla butter cream icing that I spiked with some Gosling’s Bermuda Black Rum.
I got to have some science experiment type fun, dissolving the baking soda in the buttermilk and watching it fizz up, and I ended up with a very tasty, slightly chewy around the edges cupcake that tasted NOTHING like Coke. : / The icing did taste like rum at least, but I was definitely not getting the Rum and Coke vibe. Back to the drawing board…
I found a recipe on Betty Crocker‘s website for rum cupcakes which I think I will try, and then I purchase a bottle of cola extract online which I will try to incorporate into the icing. I have never used cola extract before so if anyone has some experience with it and can offer some advice, I’m all ears!
As you can see, in the meantime I got my Rum and Non-Coke cupcakes all gussied up for the upcoming holiday! I hope everyone has a fun and safe 4th of July! And here’s just a little bit of humor for the road…
I recently bought a cupcake plunger. It’s a plastic doohickey that removes the center of a cupcake so it can be filled with all kinds of yummy stuff. No, I didn’t NEED one – a knife works just as well – but it looked like it would be a fun gadget to have. I got to use it today while I was making some orange cream cupcakes.
Why does my thumb look like it belongs to an old person?
It’s really simple. You turn the plunger back and forth as you press it down into the cupcake, then pull up and voila! Cupcake with a hole in the middle!
The flavor I was originally going for was orange creamsicle, so I made a marshmallow cream filling to fill my orange flavored cupcakes with. I had NO IDEA that mixing together unsalted butter and Marshmallow Fluff could produce something so divine.
I spooned the cream into a pastry bag with the tip cut off (after I finished taste testing…I think I’m going to dip some strawberries in the leftover cream!) and filled all the cupcakes.
I didn’t bother putting the tops back on, mostly because I ate them. : )
As I mentioned, I had been attempting a creamsicle flavor using a mix of recipes I found online. I had to go to FIVE different stores before I found the cheesecake flavored JELLO called for in the cupcake recipe. I probably could have saved myself the trouble (and gas!) because I’m not sure I really tasted it in the cupcake.
I guess the marshmallow cream was supposed to add to the creamsicle-y-ness, but the cupcake just did not taste like the frozen treat to me. That’s okay though, cause it was still tasty and very cute!
America’s Next Top CupcakeDid I mention it was tasty?
Orange Cream Cupcake Recipe from the blog Bird On A Cake.
1 package white cake mix
1 (4 serving size) package cheesecake instant pudding mix
1 (3 oz.) package orange flavored Jello
1 1/4 cups orange juice
4 eggs
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line two cupcake pans with paper liners. Mix all ingredients in a large bowl. Pour batter into liners, filling each 2/3 full. Bake for 18-20 minutes. Allow to cool on a rack. Makes 24 cupcakes.
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
1 cup shortening
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon orange extract
1/8 (maybe a splash more) cup orange juice
6 cups confectioners sugar
In a stand mixer, with flat beater, beat the butter and shortening until creamy. Add half of the powdered sugar, both extracts and the orange juice. Combine. Gradually add the remaining sugar. This made enough to frost all 24 cupcakes with some left over.
Last weekend was perfect. Sunny weather, an extra day off from work, the unofficial start to summer… Instead of going “down the shore” as we say here in Jersey, I came down with a cold.
When I get sick, I go all out. I don’t spend a day or two feeling like crap and then bounce back. I get bring-in-the-CDC-and-maybe-a-voodoo-healer-for-good-measure sick. The highlight of every day this week has been bedtime, except for that one night there was a freaking giant spider running around on my bed. Unfortunately it was real, and not some Nyquil induced hallucination.
So now it’s another lovely Saturday and I STILL feel like garbage! In order to cheer myself up (and in hopes that some alcohol might kill of the super germs that have taken over my body) I decided to make myself some sangria.
At first I browsed some recipes online but a lot of them required ingredients that I didn’t have, nor did I have the energy to put on some respectable clothes and go to the store. So I decided to just wing it with stuff I had in the house.
Not only does it taste great, I just LOVE the colors!
I am now back in my Angela-shaped indentation on the couch with my tissues, sangria and a package of Twizzlers that my wonderful boyfriend picked up for me, watching Tough Love New Orleans. I feel better already. : )
Summer Green Sangria
Bottle of white wine (I used Smart Cookie Sauvignon Blanc)
20 fl oz lemon lime soda
6 fl oz pineapple juice
1/2 cup melon liqueur
Agave nectar to taste (if you want a little extra sweetness)
Blueberries, one orange, one kiwi
Combine wine, soda, pineapple juice and melon liqueur. If desired, add agave nectar to taste. Give it a good stir, then add blueberries, orange slices and sliced kiwi. Let sit in the fridge for a least an hour to let the flavors combine. Then…enjoy (preferably in a nice sunny spot on the porch)!
Last night I was making cupcakes for a birthday at the office. I was just going to do something plain, so I grabbed a box of Devils Food cake mix and dumped all the ingredients into a mixing bowl. It was after this that I was struck with the idea to make Mudslide cupcakes. Not sure why, but I have had Applebee’s giant ass (because it’s huge AND contributes to one having a giant ass) Mudslides on the brain lately.
Mucho size Mudslide from Applebee’s (Photo credit: Newbirth35)
I thought I could kick my craving with some Kahlua and Baileys cupcakes. I didn’t want to add any more liquids to my cupcake batter because I had already put in the required water, eggs and oil so I figured I would just brush the tops of the baked cupcakes with Kahlua and then frost them with a Baileys buttercream. I should have just gone to Applebee’s.
Don’t get me wrong, the cupcakes tasted good but apparently I should have soaked them in Kahlua rather than just brushing the tops with the booze because I tasted no Kahlua. Any good alcoholic knows that a Mudslide contains Kahlua. : (
I wanted this…I got this.
Another little snafu I ran into was the icing. I used a recipe I found online. It called for two sticks of unsalted butter, three cups of confectioners sugar and three tablespoons of Baileys. I went with this one because I didn’t have any more sticks of shortening, which I usually use when I make my icing. I won’t tell you where I got the recipe from because it sucked!! When I did my requisite taste test, all I could taste was butter with a hint of Irish Cream. BLEH.
I added another cup of confectioners sugar and then ANOTHER.
Five cups got the job done and the finished product was pretty good; it just wasn’t what I had hoped for. So now I have eaten a cupcake that will go straight to my thighs, and I still need to hit up Applebee’s for a Mudslide.
This is a picture of me six years ago on the day I graduated from college –
Classy, aren’t I?
This is a picture that 2012 Angela would have sent 2006 Angela a few weeks before said graduation (if one could do those types of things…) –
College went something like this for me:
Ugh, I don’t know what I want to do, but I have to go to college…. Oooh, I’ll be a Liberal Arts major. That’s broad enough…. Oh wait, I like to write – I’ll be an English major!…. If I have to write ANOTHER FLIPPING PAPER about a book I am going to go jump off the Ben Franklin Bridge…. I’ll switch my major to Political Science! I like politics, and all that matters in the end is that I have a degree of some sort, right?…. RIGHT?!
I went to Rutgers University (it’s a good school) and my lack of direction aside, I was no dummy. I graduated with honors.
Six years later, to quote Sandra Bullock‘s character Lucy in While You Were Sleeping, “I go to work and I sit in a box like a veal.” Granted, she sat in a toll booth while I sit in a cubicle, and my lovely desk job has probably turned me into a much fattier piece of meat than a veal but you get the point.
Is this where I wanted to end up, with a yearly salary that is STILL a smaller number than the amount of money I had to take out in student loans to finance my useless Bachelor’s degree? (Still paying those back by the way…) I guess that’s what happens when you don’t have a plan but even years later I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up (some more).
I guess I should just be happy that I’m not graduating NOW, when a picture like this would be the most apropos –
There is one good thing I took away from my college years (aside from that lovely, EXPENSIVE piece of paper hanging on the wall in my home office) and that is Starbucks Passion Tea Lemonade. There was a Starbucks on campus. Going there for my PTL fix was the only thing I looked forward to every day.
Last week at the grocery store I saw Tazo Iced Passion teabags. The thought that I could now make my drink at home instead of paying Starbucks the six dollars and a kidney it costs for a Grande Tea these days made me very happy. Then I had an even happier thought, and that involved Limoncello. Enter, Tipsy Tea Lemonade…
This one is pretty simple. Prepare the tea according to the directions on the box and sweeten it (or not!) to your tastes. I used honey to sweeten mine. Once the tea is chilled fill a glass with half tea and half lemonade. As you can see, I used a bottle of convenience store lemonade (if you don’t have a Wawa where you live I’d like to offer my condolences) but if you want to get fancy feel free to make your own! The last step is to add as much Limoncello as your drunken heart desires. I used about a shot glass full. Mix, add ice and ENJOY!
Cheers to all the recent grads! Make this drink for your poor mothers when you all have to move back home for the next ten years…
Peanut Rum Creme. Sounds a little strange, no? This is what I thought when I saw a drink called Banana Nut Bay on the menu at Rum Bar in Philadelphia last year. However, other ingredients were Creme de Banana and cream of coconut and I figured something with those flavors could never be bad so I ordered it.
Oh Happy Day! This drink was soooo good! It reminded me of boozy Gerber Baby Bananas. (Yes, sometimes I buy a jar of baby bananas for a snack, so what?) Now, it was last year that I had this drink. I don’t know what made me think of it today but I checked out Rum Bar’s website and it appears that – for some bizarro reason – this tasty concotion is no longer on the menu. For a brief second I was broken hearted, thinking I would never again taste such deliciousness, but then I remembered Google.
1 oz Brugal Anejo Rum
1/2 oz Creme de Banana
1/2 oz Castries Peanut Rum Creme
1/2 oz cream of coconut
3 oz pineapple juice
Shake and serve with ice. Thank Angela for introducing you to a taste of heaven…
But wait – there’s more!! A few months after Banana Nut Bay, I was having brunch at Max Brenner’s and what do I see on the menu but another drink made with Peanut Rum Creme! This drink was called Satisfaction Guaranteed, and it did not disappoint! Castries Peanut Rum Creme, Caramel Liqueur and milk chocolate. It was a damn good drink on its own…extra bonus points for presentation!
I would say Peanut Rum Creme would definitely make a a great addition to any home bar!
So, the thing that sucks about writing a blog about things that you make is that when you don’t make anything, you have nothing to blog about! D’oh!
I haven’t been baking anything and despite enduring quite a few days in the past two weeks that have totally been worthy of adult beverage drinking, I haven’t been doing any of that either. I have, however, been doing a lot of laundry. How one man can create so many loads of laundry in the span of a week I will never understand.
Anywho, despite my utter lack of shaking, baking OR partying lately I do have a tasty drink recipe that I wanted to share in time for Cinco de Mayo….
Dancers at the annual Cinco de Mayo Festival in Washington, D.C. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Beer Margaritas! Or as I like to call them – BeerGaritas.
Margarita with lime in a margarita glass. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Let me preface this by saying (quite emphatically) that I despise beer. It’s just gross. Even on the rare occasion that I can find a beer that doesn’t make me want to scrub my tongue with a Brillo pad I do not enjoy drinking the stuff.
Brillo Pad logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
HOWEVER, I absolutely loved these beer Margaritas!
Beer Margaritas (link will take you to the original recipe!)
Ingredients
1 (12 fl oz) can frozen limeade concentrate
12 fl oz tequila
12 fl oz water
12 fl oz beer (I used Corona)
ice
1 lime, cut into wedges (optional)
salt (optional)
Pour limeade, tequila, water and beer into a large pitcher. Stir until well blended and limeade is melted (you may want to strain the pulp out, depending on preference). Adjust with additional water if needed. Add ice. Rim margarita glass with salt and garnish with lime wedges.
I am a marketing major’s dream. Slap some colorful artwork or something shiny on a product and I am drawn to it like a kid with ADD. The most recent thing to catch my eye was Three Olives Loopy. I was wandering up and down the vodka aisle at the liquor store while my boyfriend changed his mind for the millionth time about what beer he was going to buy and there it was – purple cap, blue, yellow, orange, pink and purple rings and that name – Loopy. Vodka that tastes like Fruit Loops?! Gimmie, gimmie!!!
It’s a rainy day today – perfect for staying in an experimenting with my pretty bottle of vodka. I cracked it open and the smell of one of my favorite kiddie cereals wafted out. This is going to be so easy, I thought to myself. Mix the vodka with some of the heavy cream I have left from yesterday’s chocolate mousse cake and I should have a drink that tastes just like the leftover milk from a bowl of Fruit Loops. I poured a shot of vodka and a splash of cream into my cocktail shaker with some ice, gave it a quick shake and then went in for the taste test.
WHY do things smell so good and then taste like CRAP?! Coffee, smelly markers, Loopy vodka. Unfair. It didn’t taste at all like Fruit Loops and had that nasty cheap vodka burn. I added some grenadine and shook again. Still yucky. As a last resort I tried adding some cherry fruit juice I had in the fridge and then…
Ahhhhhhhh!!! If Toucan Sam was a boozer, this would be his drink of choice.
Fruit Loopy Ingredients
One shot Three Olives Loopy
One shot cherry fruit juice
Splash of cream/half & half/milk to taste
Splash of grenadine
Ice
Directions
Combine ingredients in a cocktail shaker and shake it up (oooh-oooh)!
If you like, rim your martini glass with some crushed Fruit Loops before pouring in your cocktail.
Shake Bake and Party 