Food

Fruit Loopy

~ Angela ~ 1 Comment

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.

The Mousse Is Loose

~ Angela ~ 1 Comment

Just got done making a chocolate mousse cake (my first ever!).  If hadn’t made it FOR someone, I’d be eating it right now.  I tried a lick of the mousse and it is heavenly!  Didn’t have time for a fancy photo op (it’s pretty hot in here and I didn’t want my mousse melting), but I did snap a quick one before tucking the cake into the fridge for the night.

You can get the recipe here.

Piña Colada and Sweet Tea Vodka

~ Angela ~ 4 Comments

Don’t worry, I’m not making Sweet Tea Piña Coladas.  This post is a two-fer!  First off – Piña Colada cupcakes!!

There was another birthday in the office last week.  This time I went with Piña Colada cupcakes.  I recalled an at-home jewelry demonstration where the birthday girl consumed quite a few pineapple Jell-o shots made with coconut rum, so I knew she’d love the flavor combo.

At first I considered incorporating some coconut rum into my cupcake batter, but all I had was a bottle of 90 Proof Parrot Bay.  I’ve baked using a little bit of alcohol before (made cupcakes with some Caramel Bailey’s once) but for some reason the thought of sticking 90 proof booze in a hot oven filled my head with thoughts of cupcakes on fire so I decided to skip it.

Instead, I grabbed another boxed cake mix and in place of the water I used pineapple juice.  I also folded in some crushed pineapple.  I went with my basic buttercream recipe and put in a little coconut extract.  One of my favorite parts of a Piña Colada is the little plastic sword skewered through a cherry and a chunk of pineapple, so I mirrored that on my cupcakes using a dried pineapple bit instead of fresh fruit.

I seem to recall an episode of Cupcake Wars where the baker got bashed for putting a maraschino cherry on top of her cupcakes as decoration but the judges were obviously being idiots that day.  There’s a reason the phrase “cherry on top” exists!

The balance of pineapple and coconut was perfect, and I ended up helping myself to a second one of these before the work day was done.

Cupcake Wars style

In other news that actually does involve alcohol (time for all you underage kids to go back to looking up Justin Bieber or whatever it is you do these days)… A coworker was telling me about Jeremiah Weed Sweet Tea Vodka on Friday afternoon.  I’ve heard of Sweet Tea vodka obviously, and I had seen this brand in the liquor stores but hadn’t tried it. She said that you can make a great boozy Arnold Palmer by mixing it with lemonade.

That night, I was out at a local bar/restaurant and what should be on the happy hour menu but a Jeremiah Weed Arnold Palmer for just $5?  Yup!  I had to try it and I’m glad I did!  It came out in a mason jar type glass garnished with a lemon wedge and tasted dangerously just like iced tea lemonade.  I’m not sure what the ratio of lemonade to sweet tea vodka was, so I can’t give you an exact recipe but I’m sure you won’t mind experimenting to figure it out on your own!

If I hadn’t been the chauffeur for the evening I would have doubled up on this drink the way I did on those Piña Colada cupcakes!

 

Pineapple Cupcakes

Ingredients:

White boxed cake mix and oil and eggs listed on box
8 oz can crushed pineapple
pineapple juice

Directions:

Prepare mix according to directions on box, subbing in pineapple juice for the amount of water called for.  In my case, I needed one cup of water.  I drained the juice from the crushed pineapples into a measuring cup and then used Dole pineapple juice to get the 1 cup needed.  Once you have beaten the batter for the requisite two minutes, gently fold in the crushed pineapple and bake according to the directions on the box.

For the coconut buttercream, use the same basic recipe from my Cherry Lemonade cupcakes but instead of the grenadine use 1 teaspoon of coconut extract.

 

 

Buttons (Or, Why Sometimes Boxed Is Better)

~ Angela ~ 1 Comment

I have been tasked with making cupcakes for a coworker’s 60th birthday celebration tomorrow.  At first I was thinking of making the Snickerdoodle cupcakes I posted about in Cupcakes Taste Better Than Gasoline, but then I decided I wanted to try something new – something light and fruity for spring.  I did my usual internet perusal and found a recipe for lemon cupcakes made with light coconut milk.  Sounds tasty, right?

Since I always like to be cautious, I baked them last night.  This way, if they didn’t turn out as hoped I still had tonight to make a new batch.  Good thing.  They were…weird.  Perhaps it was the light coconut milk?  I’ve cooked with it, but never baked with it before.  The batter was made from scratch, and that was the only thing in it that wasn’t normal for a cupcake…  Whatever it was, I knew that recipe was not a keeper.

So today I regrouped with a good old-fashioned lemon boxed cake mix.  Easy peasy, trusted results!  I put lemon batter in, I got lemon cupcakes out!  I did try a little experiment with the frosting – I decided to make a cherry flavored buttercream.  It may very well be the best thing I have ever created.  I had a decent amount left after frosting the cupcakes.  I didn’t want to wash it down the sink but I knew that if I put it in a container in the fridge that I would end up gorging myself on it at some point later in the evening.  I did eat a giant blob of it before disposing of the rest. 😛

So, lemon cake + cherry frosting = Cherry Lemonade Cupcakes!  I got a bag of colorful buttons from the local craft store to use as decoration because the birthday girl loves to sew.  Hopefully people can control themselves long enough to remove the buttons before diving into one of these babies…

Cherry Lemonade Cupcakes

Lemon Cupcakes

Box of lemon cake mix and ingredients listed on box.

Cherry Buttercream (adapted from Butter Cream Frosting II on allrecipes.com)

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup shortening
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
5 cups confectioners sugar
1/4 cup milk
3 tablespoons grenadine

Directions

Make cupcakes according to directions on box.  Let cool completely.

For frosting, cream butter and shortening in a large bowl until light and fluffy.  Add all other ingredients and beat well.

I like to put a lot of icing on my cupcakes, so if you’re going to do it my way make two batches of icing to decorate 24 cupcakes.

Hop, Hop, Hooray!

~ Angela ~ 5 Comments

Here comes Peter Cottontail, hoppin’ down the bunny trail… One of my favorite things at Easter (aside from candy out the wazoo) was this old tin egg we had.  It looked exactly like this (I love the internet!!) –

Here Comes Peter Cottontail
Here Comes Peter Cottontail (Photo credit: NedraI)

When you turned the hand crank, it played Peter Cottontail.  I loved turning the crank really fast; here comes Peter Cottontail flying down the bunny trail!  I can still hear the tinny tune in my mind.

My absolute favorite Easter memory is of dyeing eggs with my brother, mom and dad.  I remember the smell of the vinegar, the fizzing sound of the dye tablets after you dropped them in the cups.  My dad always got really into things – making crazy designs with rubber bands and bits of paper towel dipped in various colors.  His eggs were always works of art.

These days my dad’s art takes the form of wooden carvings in the style of Easter Island Moai and (in case this is your first visit to my blog) my art is of the cookie variety!

This is my first Easter making decorated sugar cookies, and I’ll admit, I went a little nuts.  I had a bunch of coworkers and friends to make cookies for – about 200 cookies all together!  So last week I took a half a day off of work on Thursday and a full day on Friday.  I baked Thursday, ran out of dough, made more, then baked again Friday morning.  After lunch I spent a few hours mixing up all the icing colors I would need and then I decorated well into the night AND all the next day!  By the time Sunday rolled around I think I was partially crippled.  Apparently my cookie decorating stance is very bad for my back.  It still hurts!

However, despite the long hours and the concern that someday I will become a hunchback because of Easter 2012 , I am SO HAPPY with the way my cookies turned out!  I absolutely love them, and I hope you will too!

Check out my snazzy slideshow, and have a Happy Easter!!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cadbury Dream

~ Angela ~ 6 Comments

 

While scrolling through Pinterest the other day (instead of doing something productive like laundry) I came across a recipe for a jelly bean martini.  With all the delicious varieties or Easter candy available you would think there would be tons of Easter themed cocktails but I have only seen a few.  I thought of all the different types of jelly beans, coconut eggs, peanut butter eggs, Cadbury Creme Eggs…

There had to be a Cadbury Creme Egg Cocktail!  I did a search.  I found a recipe for a Cadbury Caramel Cream Martini.  While that sounds delicious, in my opinion nothing beats the taste of the original Cadbury Creme Egg.

Cadbury eggs, a common Easter candy. One is br...

Since I couldn’t find a recipe I decided to invent my own!  I got some Cadbury Creme Eggs at the drugstore (buy one get one free – yes!) and then headed to the liquor store.  I didn’t really know what type of liquor I wanted to use but came upon the vodka section first.

PB&J vodka, cucumber vodka, bacon vodka (breakfast martini anyone?), a vodka flavor called Dude that is the color of Mountain Dew…there are so many bizarre vodka flavors out there that I was half hoping to spot one called Cadbury Creme Egg.  Alas, I did not, so I headed to the next aisle.  I was considering the Baileys when I saw something called RumChata – a rum cream.

I had never heard of this before but I thought – cream, Creme Egg, sounds good!  I brought it home and as soon as I opened it I knew it wasn’t going to work.  All I could smell was cinnamon.  Definitely not an ingredient I want to mix with my chocolate egg.  Since I opened it, I tried a little nip of the RumChata and it is REALLY GOOD stuff.  I will definitely be experimenting with that in the future, but I had a Cadbury Creme Egg Cocktail to concoct.

I decided to try to use some of the Pinnacle Chocolate Whipped I had on the shelf.  I poured a shot of that into my trusty Magic Bullet, then added a splash of chocolate milk (I used chocolate soy milk since that was all I had).  Next I chopped up a Cadbury Creme Egg (messy!), dumped that in there  with some ice and blended.  I think adding the ice before I blended the creme egg might not have been the best idea because the creme filling got a little hard from the cold and I had to chop at it quite a bit with a spoon to break it down.  So if you want to make this I’d suggest blending the egg and the liquids first, then adding ice and you definitely want to make this because it was AWESOME!  I rimmed my martini glass with some of the leftover yellow sanding sugar I had from making Peeps Bunny Cookies, poured in my mixture and voila!  The Cadbury Dream was born…

 

Cheers to the Easter Bunny!

 

Peeps Part Deux

~ Angela ~ 6 Comments

A few weeks ago I did a sneak peek post on one of my favorite holiday goodies – The Peep! – and my attempt at making Peeps bunny cookie.  Today I am back with more sugar coated marshmallow-y goodness!

And for the finale … Last year a few days before Easter I went to the grocery store and imagine my utter delight when I saw this parked out front!!!

It’s the PeepMobile!

The Sunday Bunnies

~ Angela ~ 6 Comments

So, after three days of nearly nonstop Easter cookie immersion I am happy to report that I am DONE (and only slightly insane…)!  I’m going to do a post on everything later in the week, but today I wanted to share a little how-to for making bunny cookies.  For these particular bunnies, I went with the “as found in nature” look – very simple but extremely cute!

First (if you’re me) you start with a crap-load of bunny cookies…

Take your white royal icing and fill in the area where the bunny’s tail goes.

Next, flip your bunny over and dip his (or her – we don’t discriminate here) tail into a bowl of white Nonpareils.

You want to do this part first because you don’t want the Nonpareils to stick anywhere but the tail.  After the tail is looking nice and cottony you can outline the rest of the bunny.

At this point you should  add a little water to your icing so that it spreads easily and then simply flood in the outlined area with the icing.  Once that is dry, outline again adding a little detail on the ears and feet and then give bunny an eye and a nose and you’re done!  I used edible marker for the eye and pink royal icing for the nose.

I also had a few requests to put names on the cookies, so here is what one of those looks like!

Hope everyone has had a lovely weekend!  Personally, I’m exhausted!

One dozen eggs and six cups of butter later…

~ Angela ~ 2 Comments

My SIX batches of dough for Easter Cookie Madness 2012 are chilling in the fridge.  I used my good old hand-held mixer and I think I damn near overheated the thing.  I think I need a better attachment for my stand mixer because it just doesn’t get all the stuff up from the bottom of the bowl.  Anyone else have that problem (or a solution)?

This is a hand-held electric beater (also know...

 

Another kitchen related question… Does anyone else despise cleaning the lids to pots?  I have noticed lately that I had no problem hand washing pots and pans, but I always stick the lids in the dishwasher.  Why?

Anyway, tomorrow is baking day and then I have the whole weekend to decorate Easter egg, bunny, chick, Peep and wine bottle cookies.  Yes, wine bottles.  Someone needs them for a wine themed birthday party next weekend.  Everyone is keeping me busy!!

Speaking of wine, I think it’s time for a little nightcap!  Cheers!