Strarberry Lime Basil Sorbet

I got a bunch of strawberries, limes, and basil in my Trader Joe's pickup this week (I pickup food for a local food pantry and they let me keep some for myself). It's been pretty hot here in Boston lately, and I've got book group coming up on sunday, so I figured I'd bust out the ice cream maker and whip up some sorbet.

1 1/2 cup water

3/4 cup sugar

1 bunch basil divided

4 cups strawberries, hulled and chopped

1/2 cup lime juice

zest of 1 lime

combine water, sugar and half of the basil in a saucepan and heat until the sugar dissolves. let it sit until the liquid cools

once the liquid cools, put the strawberries, lime juice, lime zest, and the other half of the basil cut into small strips (aka chiffonade) into a blender and puree. Cool the mixture and then follow your ice cream maker's directions.

Rum Party Cupcakes: Dark and Stormy and Cuba Libre

Dark and Stormy Cupcakes
Originally uploaded by kel h

I went to a party where the theme was rum, and decided to make two kinds of rum based cupcakes. One was a layered Dark and Stormy Cupcake, and the other was a Cube Libre cupcake with coke frosting and homemade candied limes. The rum cake recipe makes a TON, in fact enough for two dozen Dark and Stormy cupcakes AND a dozen Cuba Libre (makes 2 doz full sized cupcakes)

Dark and Stormy Cupcake

Ginger Beer Cupcakes (bottom layer)

Ingredients:
1 cup flour
1/4 cup sugar
2/3 cup ginger beer
1/4 cup butter, at room temperature
2 tbsp milk
1 egg, at room temperature
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg, milk and ginger beer beat well. Add the flour, baking powder and salt. Beat until the batter is light and fluffy. Fold in the ginger.

Rum Cupcake (top layer):

2/3 c unsalted butter at rm temp
1c sugar
1c lt brown sugar
2 lg eggs rm temp
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp rum extract (or just 2 tsp vanilla)
1 1/3 c dark or spiced rum
2/3 c milk
4 c flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp salt

cream butter and sugars 3-5 min. Add eggs and extracts
in one small bowl combine rum and milk
In another bowl combine dry ingredients
add to butter mixture alternating wet and dry until combined.

Fill liner or well greased cupcake pan 1/3 full with ginger beer cupcake. Then pour another 1/3 of the way with rum cupcake (unfortunately I didn't have any food coloring, but it would be super cool if you could color the ginger beer layer a different color so you can see the layers). Bake for 15-20 minutes at 350.

Rum Frosting
1 lb powdered sugar
5 1/2 tbsp unsalted butter at rm temp
1/8-1/4 c milk
1/4 tsp salt
3 tbsp rum

combine sugar, butter and salt. Add rum. Gradually add milk to desired consistency. Mine was a bit runny (but I think i didn't use enough sugar)

Cuba Libre Cupcake

Cuba Libre (Rum and Coke) cupcakes
Originally uploaded by kel h

Rum Cupcake:
2/3 c unsalted butter at rm temp
1c sugar
1c lt brown sugar
2 lg eggs rm temp
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp rum extract (or just 2 tsp vanilla)
1 1/3 c dark or spiced rum
2/3 c milk
4 c flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 325
cream butter and sugars 3-5 min. Add eggs and extracts
in one small bowl combine rum and milk
In another bowl combine dry ingredients
add to butter mixture alternating wet and dry until combined.
Bake 20 minutes

Coca-cola frosting
1/2 c butter
1/3 c coke
1 lb powdered sugar
3 tbsp powdered cocoa
a few dashes bitters if you have them
1 tsp vanilla

Melt butter. Add coke, powdered sugar and cocoa. whisk togegther and bring to a boil. remove from heat and add vanilla and bitters. Refrigerate until it sets

Candied Limes
1-2 limes (I got around four slices per lime)
water
1 c sugar

Slice limes into 1/4 inch slices
blanch for 2 min in pot of boiling water then place on paper towel and dry.
bring 1 cup water and 1 cup sugar to a boil. Drop the limes in and let them simmer for 15-20 min. Put on a cooling rack or a piece of foil sprayed well with cooking spray. Let them cool.

(the recipe creates a nice bonus of some lime simple syrup) Toss some mint, a few uncandied limes and some rum and you've got a mojito!

Odds and Ends: Drinky Drink Ginger Margaritas and Olive Balls

I am a BIG fan of the ginger margarita. It's super easy to make a pitcher this way.

Ginger Margaritas
take 1 can limeade
pour 1 can water
3 cans ginger ale or ginger beer. (I like it with Goya Ginger Beer but it can be a bit "ginger forward" for some...aka: "tastes like burning". These people are wimps :P)
around 1/2 can tequila and 1/4 can contreau
lime juice to taste

toss it all in a pitcher and mix it up. YUM!

Also, I wanted to post this NYT recipe for olive bread balls that i made a while back. They are a super yummy salty snack.

Lingurian Olive Balls from the NYT Bitten Blog

For about two dozen balls, put a cup of all-purpose flour in the food processor along with half a teaspoon of instant yeast, a tablespoon of finely chopped fresh rosemary (or thyme, perhaps, but only a teaspoon) and half a teaspoon of fine salt. Give it a pulse to blend, then, with the machine running, slowly add tepid water, a little at a time, until a smooth but fairly solid dough is formed – a little less than half a cup is what it generally takes. Then drizzle in a tablespoon of extra-virgin olive oil and run the machine until it is incorporated. (Obviously, you can make this, and any, dough by hand as well – or using a stand mixer with a dough hook, which might be overkill for this small quantity.)

Chop up some olives — I use a mixture of mostly black (Niçoise, for instance, if only because they make geographical sense, Nice having been a Ligurian town before it changed its name from Nizza) and a few green. If I don’t buy them pitted, I just whack them with the side of a knife, one by one; this makes it easy to remove the pits. Chop them fairly fine, but not into a mush. You want a good half a cup of chopped olives.

The (potentially) hard part comes next: kneading them into the dough. What can make this difficult is that the moisture and oil in the olives initially turn the dough into a nasty, ropy mess. Continued kneading, with the addition of a little more flour if necessary, will eventually bring it together, though it might remain a bit sticky. If you’re using a stand mixer or if, like me, you have an old food processor that came with one of those stubby plastic bread-dough blades, you can breathe a sigh of relief and do this by machine – but the regular metal blade will puree the olives, which is not what you want.

Let the dough rise in a covered container for about an hour (or longer if you want to make it ahead of time). Then punch it down and form as many 3/4-inch balls as you figure you need; refrigerate or even freeze any remaining dough. Lay the little balls out on a tray lined with lightly floured waxed or parchment paper. Loosely cover with plastic wrap and let them rise for 30 to 40 minutes or until they feel soft and puffy. Fry them until golden, about seven or eight minutes, at 325°F in an inch and a half or two inches of neutral oil jazzed up with 1/2 cup olive oil. Try to turn them once or twice as they fry, though they may resist this. Drain on paper towels and sprinkle with salt.

Mojito cupcakes and Margarita Jigglers

Mojito cupcakes.jpg
Originally uploaded by kel h

I have successfuly made a mojito cupcake that i like. 1 cup softened butter 1 cup brown sugar 2 cups self rising flour .25 tsp baking powder 4 eggs (aka your basic cupcake recipe) zest of one lime juice of one lime 1 shot of rum 1 tbsp mint (or chop up a handful of fresh mint) mix it up, then put it in cupcake wrappers in a tin. bake for 20 minutes while that's going on mix 3 tbsp rum, 2 tbsp lime, 2 tbsp brown sugar and a tsp mint together in a saucepan and simmer it for 5 minutes. when the cupcakes come out, poke a few holes in the top and then pour a tsp or so of the syrup into the holes. (if you're feeling really wacky, also pour a bit of rum in the holes). the frosting i made was 3 tbsp softened butter 1.5 cup powdered sugar a shot of rum 1 tbsp lime juice 1 tbsp lime zest some chopped up mint brown sugar to taste/texture mix it up.

I also made some scary margarita jigglers 4 packets of lime jello .5 cup lime juice 1.5 cup water or seltzer .5 cup tequila (i did mine with 1 cup seltzer and 1 cup tequila, but i think they are too strong) heat up the lime juice, then mix in the jello. once it's all disolved, turn off the heat and add the tequila and water. pour in a pan and let it set. the great thing about doing it this way is that it sets wicked fast, AND they are solid enough that you can pick them up with your fingers.