How to Make... Margarita Cupcakes

 

You know we love booze and you know we love cupcakes so it's only logical that we celebrate Cinco de Mayo with Margarita Cupcakes! Inspired by Betty Crocker's deliciously appealing recipe, I added a lemon-lime cream cheese frosting and wa-lah, a star recipe is born!

So, put on your apron - get your cookin' cocktail ready and follow along:

Ingredients:

CRUST
1.5 cups coarsely crushed pretzels
.5 cup sugar
.5 cup butter (melted)

CAKE
1 box Betty Crocker® SuperMoist® white cake mix
.75 cup bottled non-alcoholic margarita mix
.5 cup water
.33 cup vegetable oil
1 TBSP grated lime peel
3 egg whites

FROSTING
1 (8 oz.) package cream cheese, softened
.5 cup butter, softened
1 TBSP grated lemon peel
1 TBSP lime juice
5 cups confectioners' sugar

Makes 30 single cupcakes.

Directions

1) Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees. Prepare cupcake liners by greasing the bottom with a touch of Crisco (or coconut oil if you're fancy).

2) In medium bowl, mix crust ingredients. Sprinkle evenly in bottom of cupcake liners; press gently.

3) In large bowl, beat cake ingredients with electric mixer on low speed for 30 seconds, then on medium speed 2 minutes, scraping bowl occasionally. Spoon evenly over crust in cupcake liners.

4) Bake in oven for 16-20 minutes or until light golden brown and top springs back when touched lightly in the center. Cool completely.

5) To make frosting, beat the cream cheese and butter with electric mixer until light and fluffy, and stir in the lemon peel and lime juice. Beat in the confectioners' sugar, 1 cup at a time, scraping the sides of the bowl throughouly after each addition. Spread the frosting over the cupcakes.

As you can tell, these little treasures don't actually contain any liquor, so they're safe to share with the kiddos  (as long as you don't mind a mile-high sugar-high), coworkers, or anyone else that you really want to wish a "Happy Cinco de Mayo," but without the actual tequila :).

From our kitchen to yours, happy Cinco de Mayo!!

-- JB

How to Make… South of the Border Shamrock Shaker

Sure, I like Guinness and Bailey's as much as the next lass, but I also spent the last 11 years in Los Angeles, the tequila capital of the US (I just made that statistic up and it’s probably not true!). 

Me & mah green beer!

 
And as such, this year, I’d like to celebrate my quarter-Irish heritage with little kick, a tequila kick! Of course my cocktail must be GREEN and what better way to add GREEN to your cocktail than food coloring Midori liqueur?! 

Count your lucky charms, you just found a new fun & frisky South of the Border Shamrock Shaker!

  

Here's what you'll need: 

• 1.5 parts Tequila 
• 1 part Midori
• .5 part Triple Sec 
• Splash of Orange Juice  

Now, just shake all this up in your cocktail shaker. Pour over ice AND enjoy! 

Shamrock Shaker or Ectocooler?!!

--JB

Get Your Drank On: How to Super Bowl for Non-Sports Fans!

True Hollywood Confession Number XLVIII… JG and I did NOT in fact return to the Midwest because of our undying devotion to respectively, the Chicago Bears and Green Bay Packers. Though we do love our Super Bowl Shuffle!! 

Sorry Sports Fans, this is actually me getting ready for 

the Academy Awards, my true Game Day ;)!!

We also love a good time and very much appreciate the value of football season bringing beautiful honey babies out – even in inclement weather – to celebrate their favorite teams. Now, watching them cry when said team loses; that’s a different story… 

We have followed this playoff season enough to know that beyond whatever anyone thinks about Richard Sherman, he is most definitely someone we’d like to Happy Hour with!! And Peyton Manning can tell us what “Omaha” really means. We’ll promise not to tell **fingers crossed behind our backs**. 

 These dudes are ready to PAAAAARTAY!!

If you haven’t figured it out yet, JG and I won’t really be watching the game for the raw athleticism. But we do love the Super Bowl and of course, a good Super Bowl party!! Because for us, SB Game Day will always be the best time of the year to experiment with city-themed cocktails! 

For the Seahawks, The Seattle Times has us covered with their Hawktails, crafted by the city’s top bartenders - including Jason Finn, drummer of the Presidents of the United States of America. Remember “Lump” and “Peaches?” Apologies or you're welcome (?)  for getting those ditties stuck in your head!

Check out this Seattle Times video:  

And the Bronco’s – well, the Denver Post needs to make a good video! But this Mile-High Muddler (from the Daily Meal via Bendistillery) sounds nice and refreshing like the cool crisp air of the Mile-High City! 

Mile High Muddler

INGREDIENTS 
• 2 ounces Crater Lake Vodka 
• One slice each of Lemon, Lime, and Orange 
• Tonic water 

DIRECTIONS 
Muddle fruit in a rocks glass, fill with ice and add vodka. Top with tonic water. Garnish with an orange and mint. 

And of course, if you prefer half-and-half and espresso in your cocktails (hullo? Coffee cocktails, sign us up!) – there’s always the Colorado Bulldog! 

Colorado Bulldog

INGREDIENTS 
• 1 ounce Vodka 
• 1 ounce coffee flavored liquer 
• 1 can of Coca-Cola 
 • 1 ounce light cream 

DIRECTIONS 
Fill a tall 16 oz. glass with 1/3 of ice. Pour in the vodka and coffee liqueur. Fill to within 1 inch of the rim with Coke. The fill to within ½ inch with light cream. Stir to blend. Try not to overdose on disgusting ecstacy!!

The Super Bowl is also one of the best times of the year to:

• Watch fun commercials! Speaking of which, remember this painful GoDaddy ad from last year? Not to toot my own horn, but that dude totally online date messaged me. In a related note: I am no longer online dating. And that was not tooting my own horn; I just got a little depressed all over again. 

• Attend an awesome concert from the comfort of our living room! From Nipple Gate  to Queen Bey out-fiercing them all, we love a great half-time show!!! This year is no exception; we’re looking forward to The Red Hot Chili Peppers and Bruno Mars workin’ it out (sorry, still in Beyonce mode)! Even though they’ll likely perform separately, we can always hope for a groundbreaking new mash-up like “I Feel Like I’ve Been Locked Out Under the Bridge Downtown.” Half-seriously, I’m getting goose bumps! 

• Enjoy the Puppy Bowl! Those puppies are so damn cute. And this year… well, Hallmark Channel is hosting the Kitten Bowl. Enough said. 

• Hope that the post-Super Bowl TV show lives up to its hype! We’re stoked for Jess and the gang to visit Prince (as in the Purple Prince of Paisley Park) on “The New Girl!” Although we have a rather meta idea that we think might top it. Drumroll please... How about Dave Chappelle guest starring as Prince?!!!

We say wear your favorite team shirt (or blouse) and enjoy the Super Bowl! No matter if it's for the commercials, the music, the cats - the dogs, whatever - enjoy yourselves, drink responsibly, and please DO NOT CRY if your team loses! Or Prince will send you home... without pancakes!

 -- JB

How to Make… a Nightmare on Spice Street cocktail

Fall is my favorite time of year. The leaves are changing colors; bars & restaurants roll out their apple and pumpkin flavored goodies; and scary movies are on all channels and in every theater. When my west coast partner in crime, Vanilla Twist, emailed JB & I a link of Scary Movie Inspired cocktails from People magazine, I just knew that I had to make the Nightmare on Spice Street cocktail created by Colin Maxwell from EMM Group.

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET is by far my favorite horror movie series. I have the box set of movies, a lunch pail, a Freddy Krueger doll, and dressed as a female Freddy last Halloween.  

True Hollywood Story: I once worked with Robert Englund on a pilot series. When I was too freaked out to use the porta-potty in the cold woods, he was nice enough to offer up his VIP bathroom when he overheard me complaining to a coworker! See, not scary at all!

This past Halloween weekend, my best friend Genna & I got together for a night of psychic readings, horror movies, and A Nightmare on Spice Street cocktails!

Here’s what you need to get your spooky spice on!

A Nightmare on Spice Street

2 oz. vanilla vodka

½ oz. pumpkin spice syrup (see recipe below)

¾ oz. lemon juice

½ oz. Bailey's Irish Cream 

¼ oz. Frangelico

Combine all ingredients in a shaker. Shake hard and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a dash of cinnamon. 

For pumpkin spice syrup, blend the following ingredients until smooth:

1 15 oz. can of pumpkin puree

2 cups water

1½ cups sugar

1 tsp. cinnamon

½ tsp. ground dried ginger

½ tsp. nutmeg

¼ tsp. ground cloves

All this goodness makes this...

... scary looking but oh so tasty mix!

A couple of tips, we learned while mixing up the cocktails:

-       Take it easy on the lemon juice. Too much makes the drink look a bit curdled (scary!!) and too tastes too tart (boo!!).

-       Add ice! Drinks with creamy liquors are best when they remain chilled.

This is one drink that will definitely leave you with sweet dreams! Cheers!!

-JG

How to make... Blue Sangria!

As summer comes to an end, you've still got a couple good weeks to make this refreshing summer treat! Impress your friends; dazzle your dates, all that & more with...

Blue Sangria

Recipe from Bristol Farms Spring 2011 Magazine.

Ingredients

1 large orange

1 large lemon

1 large lime

3 large strawberries

3 large sprigs fresh mint

1 cinnamon stick

1/3 cup sugar

1 bottle (125 ml) dry white wine

2/3 cup blue curaçao

1/4 cup orange juice

2 cups seltzer

ice cubes

Directions

1. Wash fruit. Thinly slice orange, lemon, and lime and remove any seeds. Thinly slice strawberries. Place fruit in a large pitcher.

2. Add mint, cinnamon stick, sugar, and white wine. Stir until sugar dissolves. Pour in blue blue curaçao and orange juice and stir until combined.

3. Cover and refrigerate 6 to 8 hours.

4. Go to Happy Hour & get crunk. (not optional)

5. Add seltzer. Pour sangria into large wine glasses. Add ice cubes and marinated fruit.

6. Kick back, relax, share with your hoodrat friends, get more crunk. Enjoy!