Wednesday, April 30, 2014

rum raisin bars and cranberry-orange-walnut scones

My general pattern with baking with alcohol is as follows: buy liquor for a specific recipe, use a couple tablespoons, shove the remaining liquor to the back of one of my baking shelves (yes, I have so many baking ingredients that they take up 3 shelves), and promptly forget about said liquor.

Lately though, my baking motto around here is "add booze." About a month ago, I took inventory of my kitchen, making mental notes of everything that needs to be used up by the end of July. I found near-full bottles of bourbon, rum, amaretto, and frangelico. Since then, I've been frantically trying to use up the liquor, which is tough to do without simply drinking it. 

So, I made a chocolate amaretto cake from the Magnolia Bakery Cookbook . I also added rum to pumpkin bread and pineapple upside-down cake. I've added bourbon to blondies and banana bread. And sometimes, I just pour frangelico into a shot glass and just sip it (it's the only one of the four that I'll drink). I'm doing my best to bake with the booze, and I'm waiting for Drew to come home so I can make him this Flourless Chocolate Hazelnut Cake (he doesn't read my blog, so I'm not worried that he'll find out).

Last weekend, I made rum raisin bars from the Fat Witch Brownies cookbook. Not at all too heavy and not overpowering, these were quite good. 
Okay, I'm not adding booze to everything around here. I also made cranberry-orange-walnut scones, from Vegan with a Vengeance. I think Drew would be proud of me for taking some liberties in baking these. I added dried cranberries and toasted walnuts, and I substituted oats for half of the flour in an effort to make the scones healthy and appropriate for breakfast.
I broke the "add booze" rule because they were for my breakfasts this week and I thought it would be wrong to eat something with alcohol in it at 7 in the morning. 

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