Brooklyn Pour: Beers in the Bank

This Saturday, October 6, the Village Voice is presenting its second annual Brooklyn Pour craft beer festival at Skylight One Hanson in Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn.

I went last year and loved it.  Because what's not to love?  

Chocolate Coffee Porter Cupcakes

Yesterday was my 2nd wedding anniversary, so I figured this would be a good week to share with you some cupcakes I made for another wedding.

Matt's brother got married in late June and, as you may have seen, our wedding present to his brother and his wife was the wedding cake.  Well, not exactly.  Instead of a cake, they decided to serve tons of mini cupcakes.

Italian Old Fashioned Doughnuts - a winner at the Brooklyn Booze Experiment!

Who knew that turning a classic cocktail comprised of just a few simple ingredients into a little doughnut would be such a hit?  Apparently it was - my Italian Old Fashioned Doughnuts won 1st place from the judges as well as the Theo Prize for embodying the spirit of the competition (no pun intended) at Sunday's Brooklyn Booze Experiment.

When I saw the theme, the first thing I thought of was transforming a classic cocktail into a dessert.  I'm not sure why that immediately popped into my head, but, for whatever reason, it did, and I was determined to do so.  

Italian Old Fashioned Doughnuts - Brooklyn Booze Experiment

Today I'm competing in the Brooklyn Booze Experiment at the Bell House and here's what I'm serving:

Blood orange ricotta doughnut dusted with bitters-scented sugar and filled with Rittenhouse Rye-infused dark chocolate ganache

The Old Fashioned is, as its name suggests, a seriously classic cocktail.  Minimal in its construction, a good Old Fashioned is comprised of rye whiskey, sugar, bitters, and a twist of orange peel and is then stirred along with a few chunks of ice.  There are no maraschino cherries here, so don't let anyone try and put one in your drink when you order one of these!  And bourbon is often used, but rye is the authentic spirit.  It's a simple drink, but, as with anything, if you use the best ingredients, you'll be rewarded with something delicious.

Because I love Old Fashioneds (and bourbon and whiskey), I decided to transform them into a dessert.  I had planned to make a filled shortbread cookie, but my think tank (aka my husband) came up with the idea of a filled doughnut, and here we are.

To give this treat an Italian slant, I made ricotta doughnuts and flavored them with blood orange zest.  Another Italian twist is the flavoring of the sugar coating the doughnuts.  Instead of using Angostura bitters, I went the route of Italian Amari (which encompasses a wide array of bitter, herb-based spirits ranging from Averna to Ramazzotti) and created a spice blend evocative of the flavors of those bitters, which was then mixed with the sugar used to dust the doughnuts.  Last, but most certainly not least, the doughnuts are filled with a dark chocolate ganache infused with rich, peppery Rittenhouse Rye.  In combination, all these elements taste just like a classic Old Fashioned cocktail, but in doughnut form.

So there you have it.  The Italian Old Fashioned Doughnut.  I hope you love it as much as I do!

Bar Snack (Beer, Pretzel, Chocolate, and Caramel) Cupcakes

Beer and pretzels: a classic combination and for good reason.  There's nothing quite like the pairing of a refreshing, smooth, and slightly pint and the salty, satisfying crunch of pretzels.  Recently, I've been seeing this pair pop up outside of the bar, and these cupcakes aren't the first instance of it.

My first experience with beer and pretzels in a sweet was NYC's own Liddabit Sweets' beer and pretzel caramels.  Made with a blend of Brooklyn Brewery's Brown Ale and East India Pale Ale, this treat is the perfect amalgamation of pretzels suspended in a sweet, salty, and beer-y base.  (Unbeknownst to me until just yesterday, Liddabit also makes something called the Slurtle, which are the same caramels topped with chocolate.)  And just the other day I saw a recipe for beer, pretzel, and chocolate marshmallows.  Clearly the combination is a good one otherwise it wouldn't be popping up in so many places.

Frosty's Flipped Fruitcake and The Brooklyn Holiday Experiment

Poor fruitcake. It's always the butt of jokes this time of year, and, unfortunately, for good reason: it's usually dense, booze-soaked but somehow dry in texture, and filled with frightening artificially colored candied fruits. But fruitcake doesn't have to be such a disaster. It can be good - even delicious - if it's approached with a fresh perspective.

Photo from Metromix NY

Last week, I reinvented fruitcake for The Brooklyn Holiday Experiment and with great results - the judges awarded it third place.  Redemption for fruitcake! 

Tropical Dinner Part 5: Kiwi Lime Fizz

It’s almost happy hour, so I figured I’d share the cocktail that goes along with this week’s theme. I came up with this one because I had bought too many kiwis the week before. Some of them were turning to mush, so there was only one thing I could do with them: turn them into puree. And that is how this tasty green cocktail was born.