So, I've always liked to bake. And also really enjoy baked goods (just check out my waistline! eek!). And booze. Oh how I love my booze (responsibly and occasionally, of course). While my love affair with baking goes much further back, booze and I have been buddies since my first Diet Coke and Rum at the age of...well, let's just use our imagination there. Somewhere around the age of 22, I got the brilliant and not-so-original idea of blending the two together. And while baking while drinking sounds fun and can occasionally be a fun idea, that's not what I was thinking.
I was making banana bread in my tiny little kitchen, and my eyes happened to fall open a bottle of Captain Morgan's Private Stock Rum. Hmmm....bananas are good, and tropical...rum is delicious...and tropical. I wondered how the two would mix. And to my delight, it was a success. A delicious loaf of banana bread with a twist...it was subtle but really gave that special flavor that only booze can provide. And thus, rum became my "secret ingredient". I pour a shot of it into everything from sweet breads, muffins, pancakes, french toast, certain cookies, pretty much anything I bake.
From then on, I began to notice recipes that called for booze, or different ways I could combine the two creatively. Some ideas were clearly not my own, nor were they new...but some were. When I was 25 and freshly out of graduate school in a real grown up job, I decided to sign up for the holiday cookie exchange. For 4-5 hours the night before, I spent perfecting (read: making it up as I went along to blend together 3 similar yet strikingly unrelated recipes) Irish Christmas Whiskey Balls. They were cakey, chocolaty, and cute. Oh, and did I mention the booze? It had whiskey in the balls, and then were glazed in the most divine whiskey powder sugar glaze you could imagine. And while they tasted great, I was a bit nervous. When you opened the tin I was storing them in, you would have sworn you had fallen into a bottle of Jameson. Opps! Maybe they weren't the most appropriate treat for a 9 AM cookie exchange on a Tuesday morning at work, but to my surprise and joy, they were quickly devoured, and my inbox was full of recipe requests. Score!
I need to be honest here. I don't bake ALL the time. I have my go-to quick and easy recipes for parties and gifts, and around the holidays, I do bake more often. Sometimes, the mood will strike randomly (like tonight), and other times, I may just stick with the booze. But, tonight, as I was making a loaf of banana pecan bread, I realized I was out of rum. This led to a few Pirates of the Caribbean quotes, the question of whether or not Jack Daniels would do (I decided no), a VERY momentary thought about walking to the Jewel 3 or 4 blocks down (but it is Snowmeggedon 2011 tonight and it just wasn't worth it), and then...I thought how fun it would be to write a blog about baking with booze.
I've been thinking about writing a blog for a long, long time. Though I may or may not have had the self-indulgent Xanga account in college (yikes!), I have never blogged. I think I avoided it because the only thing I thought about discussing was myself and my life. While I like to think that I am pretty extraordinary, I figured my voice my get lost amongst the other dime-a-dozen "this is what I did this weekend" blogs in cyberspace. But this blog, where I intend to write about my adventures in baking with booze, seems fun, interesting, and maybe challenging. It will force me to be creative, which I think I need right now. I don't promise to follow a specific posting schedule, or pictures and recipes all the time. I am a Gemini, after all, and have the tendency to be a bit flakey (but in a very endearing way, I assure you). My goal is to bake 2-3 times a month, with about the same numbers of postings. If it goes well, I may indulge myself, my boyfriend, and my currently non-existent readers a bit more. We shall see. I've already began to think about what to tackle first. I have an old family recipe for Irish Soda Bread that I have been DYING to experiment with. I am also very intrigued with making a honeycake, as that is my current nickname for my boyfriend. Honey liqueur anyone? In another bought of honesty, this may also have to do with my wanting to purchase a very funky bottle of said liqueur from a very funky polish sausage shop/liquor store (ahh- behold the wonders of Chicago). Who knows what else I will try? I'm excited, and hope you are too!
Until next time, cheers!
PS In case you were wondering, the snow thunder is in reference to the massive blizzard of February 1st, 2011 here in Chicago. It is, in fact, snow thundering as I type. Man, I wish I had that rum right about now...
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