Christmas is here!

And you have two recipes! First up, Christmas Cake.

When I moved to Delhi in 2010 the Dragon and I were thrilled with our spanking new house and decided we wanted to have a christmas party. We made many plans but I don't remember if we did bake all the things we planned, and we didn't have many guests--only the Glare if I remember right--but I did make my hero Joe's Old School Fruitcake for the party. And dear lord in heaven. I decided immediately that I had to make it every single year. And thus was born the annual Christmas Cake Party, in it's fourth edition this year.

Chocolate Whiskey cake with Baileys frosting

I promised all my friends I'd bake them cakes in March and April, mainly so I could bake all the delish recipes I've been dying to try, and then not have to eat them. A fellow whiskey-loving friend who periodically ensures there is Cutty Sark in my life recently had a birthday, and having seen these over on smittenkitchen, I decided I'd try them.

The first problem was that they're cupcakes and I needed to make them into a cake. Luckily, trawling the comments revealed a fairly straightforward formula for it. The second and larger problem was the lack of Guinness in our lives and not enough knowledge of beer to know what I could use to substitute it. I decided to ditch the beer entirely - a bad mistake I found out later when the cake itself tasted really bad. Then I needed to get my hands on Baileys, but that was solved by a quick search online, after which I made my own Irish Cream. DAYAM it was good.

Apple Martini

*hic*
So I decided I wanted some, googled about 70 million recipes which all have a dizzying variety of requirements and made up one. So far I like it. It's also very pretty, if the camera were here I'd post a picture.

Serves: 2

2 shot glasses vodka (grey goose)
1 shot glass apple schnapps (puckers)
1 shot glass dry vermouth (martini & rossi)
1 shot glass apple juice (red jacket orchard's fuji apple juice)

Pour ingredients into cocktail shaker over ice. Shake. Pour into martini glass. Drink. Repeat.


*hic*

Strawberry Daiquiri

Assuming kitty's allowed to get a wee bit tizzy in the kitchen, here's me favorite *fruity* cocktail.

Ingredients
Half a glass o white rum
3-4 fresh strawberries (save half a wedge to stick on side of glass in the end to make it look pretty before u destroy it)
4 tbsp lime juice
1/2 tsp sugar (the brown variety tastes nicer)
1/2 cup crushed ice - if you want a frozen strawberry daiquiri

To make :
Dump all ingredients into blender and blend for 10-15 seconds.
Pour into chilled cocktail glass (and don't forget the half a wedge o' strawberry you saved earlier!).
Bottoms up!