January 2010 Archive

31Jan
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The food syringe

A Food Syringe

One tool that helps immensely in the creation of Booze Cakes is the food syringe. You may have seen these at your local grocery store. These large syringes are marketed for injecting marinades into meat, but I’ve found mine to be the best dang thing on the market for getting as much booze as possible into a cake.

How does it differ from an ordinary syringe? This food-safe device has a large needle that has not one, but two large holes near the tip of the needle.

Let’s just talk a little bit about food safety. I wouldn’t recommend using anything other than a food-safe syringe for food. Food syringes are designed for use with food and also come apart easily for cleaning. Also, you do not want to use the same food syringe on your Booze Cake that you’ve previously used on raw meat. Invest in a food syringe specifically for Booze Cake and give it a nice name (I like to call mine “The Enabler”). Love your food syringe and it will love you back.

Posted by The Boozing Baker in Tools and tagged with ,
31Jan
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What is Kahlúa?

Full Kahlua bottle Kahlúa is the most well-known brand of coffee-flavored liqueur in the world. It was first produced in Mexico in 1936. The original recipe, which is still used today, consists of Arabica coffee beans, caramel, sugar, vanilla and cane spirits. The name Kahlúa means “House of the Acolhua people” in the pre-Columbian Veracruz Nahuatl language.

In 1962, that Kahlúa found its way onto shelves in the United States where it quickly gained popularity. Even today, it is still a favorite ingredient in many cocktails, such as White and Black Russians, Mudslides and B-52s. It is also enjoyed shaken with cream or simply served over ice.

The alcohol content can vary from 20% to 35%, depending on the region where it is sold. In the United States, Kahlúa contains 20% alcohol (40 proof), with the exception of Kahlúa sold in Ohio, where the alcohol content is 21.5% (43 proof). How does Ohio get a stronger Kahlúa? The state liquor laws consider anything with 20% alcohol or lower to be too weak to sell in the state liquor stores. Thus, the producer of Kahlúa creates a completely separate product for sale in the state of Ohio.

In 2005, The Kahlúa company was partially acquired by the French alcohol giant Pernod Ricard, which is one of the largest alcohol companies in the world. They own many other well-known brands such as Chivas Regal, Seagrams, Jameson, Absolut, Beefeater, Sauza, Laphroaig and Malibu.

Kahlua up close

Posted by The Boozing Baker in Booze and tagged with ,
31Jan
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A girl, a cupcake and a dream…

First Post.

I’ve always had a love of booze and cake, and for quite some time, I’ve been mixing the two. It was only after a picture of my shotglass cupcake (that’s right – you heard me – A SHOTGLASS CUPCAKE) started floating around the internet that I decided to share my love of cake and booze with the world.

This blog will be the place that I can share some of my old favorites as well as some of my triumphs and failures that come along with trying to invent new ways to mix pastries with booze. I’m still setting up the site, so bear with me as I try out new designs.

Just to tease you, I will leave you with a picture of the shotglass cupcake that started it all, as taken by Michael Surtees of DesignNotes fame (a detailed how-to coming soon).

Shotglass Cupcake

This is one tough cupcake!

Cheers!

Posted by The Boozing Baker in Uncategorized and tagged with , , ,