Bourbon Slush

Wonderful memories are made on summer evenings spent in backyards with friends. On one such evening a number of years ago, we were served a cocktail that became an instant favorite: Bourbon Slush. We slurped and chatted and slurped some more, the heat of the day melting away with our frozen drinks.

The original recipe comes from the Kentucky Derby Museum Cookbook, and our friend Deb made a batch for us on that evening (along with fried chicken and homemade pickles!). Deb is a Kentucky girl and has introduced us to really good bourbon ... she’s a good friend.

In this delicious slush, bourbon is mixed with iced tea, lemonade and orange juice and then frozen until it resembles a granita. When frozen, you scrape up scoops to serve in glasses with a sprig of mint. The glasses turn frosty in your hands, and the slush melts as you sip and relax and appreciate a warm, lazy afternoon. It’s just not summer until we’ve enjoyed some Bourbon Slush.

Icy, slushy and refreshing, this cocktail goes down easily and your guests will quickly be hinting for another scoop. Keep a stash in your freezer and you’ll be ready as temperatures soar in August.

Bourbon Slush
Adapted from the Kentucky Derby Museum Cookbook, via my friend, Deb
Makes 6 cups

3 cups freshly brewed, unsweetened iced tea
1 12 ounce can frozen lemonade concentrate, thawed
1 cup orange juice
1 cup bourbon
Mint sprigs to garnish

Mix the tea, lemonade, orange juice and bourbon together in a freezer safe pitcher or container. Pop it into the freezer and freeze overnight. When ready to serve, scrape the slush (as you would a granita) into pretty glasses and serve with a sprig of mint to garnish.

Chocolate Cherry Bourbon Shortcake

Chocolate cherry bourbon shortcake ... I meant to take only a little bite to taste how the flavors came together.  And then another, just to be sure.  And then before I knew it, the plate was empty.   Now I’m sighing in delight and can’t even think about dinner.

Strawberry shortcake is my favorite summer dessert, followed closely by Pavlova – any excuse to pair fruit and cream!  My son, Isaac, chose strawberry shortcake for the dessert at his Bar Mitzvah Shabbat dinner ... it’s a family favorite.  So when I saw that Abby Dodge selected shortcake for this month’s Bake Together challenge I was a bit gleeful.

Normally I am traditional in my shortcake and bake a cream scone as the base for luscious cream and juicy berries.  Abby shares her chocolate shortcake, though, and I decided to try something new, adding a dash of ground espresso for more depth of flavor.  My small counter space was taken up with a flat of raspberries, so I scooped the dough out rather than rolling and cutting it.  The resulting shortcakes were quite rustic with craggy tops that I rather liked.

I haven’t cooked or baked nearly enough with cherries yet this season so I continued to branch out in my shortcake adventure and use cherries in place of berries.  I seem to have misplaced my cherry pitter, but fortunately my friend Ashley shared her handy tip to pit with a chopstick – just give the cherry a poke and the pit bursts out.  Now, pitting cherries is a tedious and messy process but if you can embrace the stained fingers and inevitable splatters you will be happily rewarded.  I listened to Ladi6 and grooved a bit and two pounds of cherries were pitted before I knew it.

I didn’t stop there – cherries lend themselves well to booze and chocolate so I spiked the whipped cream with bourbon and sweetened it with brown sugar (I love bourbon as an added flavor and in cocktails ... I promise to share a smashing cocktail later this summer).

What a combination of flavors and textures!  The dark sweetness of cherries and chocolate combined with billowy cream is rich and sublime, soft and tender.  I will happily make this shortcake again.

Chocolate Cherry Bourbon Shortcake
Adapted from Abby Dodge’s Double Chocolate-Strawberry Shortcakes
Serves 8

For the shortcakes
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, chilled
3/4 cup buttermilk, chilled
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup unsweetened, natural cocoa powder
2 teaspoons espresso powder
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon kosher salt

For the whipped cream
2 cups heavy cream, well chilled
2 tablespoons bourbon
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

For the cherries
2 pounds cherries
1/2 cup sugar

To make the shortcakes
Preheat the oven to 400°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment or a nonstick liner.

Cut the butter into small pieces and place in the freezer until ready to use. Whisk the buttermilk and vanilla together and pop in the refrigerator until ready to use.

Put the flour, sugar, cocoa, espresso powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a food processor and pulse until well blended. Add the cold butter pieces and, using short pulses, cut the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles coarse meal, about 1 minute.

Scrape the mixture into a large bowl and pour the buttermilk and vanilla over the flour mixture.  Use a rubber spatula to stir until it forms a moist dough and holds together (do not mix too much).

Divide the dough into 8 portions and drop onto the prepared baking sheet. Bake until puffed and spring back when the tops are gently pressed, about 12 minutes. Let the shortcakes cool for about 15 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

To make the whipped cream
In a medium bowl, beat the chilled cream until soft peaks begin to form.  Add the bourbon, brown sugar and vanilla and beat until mixed in. Serve immediately or cover and chill for a few hours.

To make the cherries
Pit the cherries using a cherry pitter or chopstick.  In a bowl, stir the sugar and cherries together and then mash with a pastry cutter to start juicing and breaking the fruit down (you may also discover a pit or two that slipped by).  Cover the bowl and refrigerate for a few hours until the cherries have released some of their juices.

To serve
Using a serrated knife, cut the shortcakes in half crosswise and place the bottom halves on serving plates.  Spoon big dollops of whipped cream onto the bottom halves, ladle some cherries and their juices over, add a little more whipped cream because it’s so good, and cover with the top half of the shortcake.  Serve immediately.

Homemade Vanilla Extract: Tackling My DIY List

I’ve been bitten by the do-it-yourself bug and have created quite a list of kitchen ventures that I am eager to try. It’s an evolving list – the type of list where you cross one item off (bread) and add two (Worcestershire sauce, yogurt) thus ensuring I will never be without a new challenge. My DIY repertoire now includes sriracha, ricotta cheese, pickling, spice rubs, cocoa mix, zhoug and granola. As I happily fill my Mason jars with homemade goodness, thoughts of, “What else can I make?” dance in the back of my mind.

When I was graciously given a stash of vanilla beans last fall, I immediately knew what I would create with this valuable treasure. Homemade vanilla extract has been on my list for some time now. I go through a lot of vanilla and cringe a little each time I buy a huge bottle of pure extract with its equally huge price tag. Vanilla beans are not cheap either, which has deterred me from making extract at home. Did you know that vanilla beans come from orchids? That helps explain their high price tag. I’ve read numerous recipes for making vanilla extract and it’s quite simple – vanilla beans, alcohol, a jar and time are all you need.

The most traditional alcohol to use appears to be vodka, with rum and bourbon following. Since I had a generous supply of beans (and alcohol!) I decided to make two different vanillas and compare their tastes. I split some vanilla beans lengthwise and used a knife to scrape out the beans. I divided the beans and pods between two jars and filled one with vodka and one with bourbon. I popped lids on each jar, shook them up, labeled them, tucked them in a dark spot and proceeded to wait. I’ve read that you should wait anywhere from eight to twelve weeks so I split the difference and waited ten weeks. I also read to add anywhere from three to six vanilla beans per cup of alcohol, so I created some decadent vanilla with ten beans to each of my one and half cup jars of alcohol. As the vanilla is used, you can replenish it by topping off the jar with more alcohol and giving it a little shake.

To taste test our vanillas, I baked a batch of sugar cookies and split the batch in half, adding a different vanilla to each. Using minimal ingredients (flour, sugar, butter, salt and eggs) allowed the vanillas to shine. The cookies baked with bourbon vanilla were the unanimous favorite. With each bite, we got a little blast of bourbon flavor that quickly settled into a warm, fuller flavor of vanilla. The cookies just seemed more “vanilla-ey” and had a vanilla punch to them. The scent of the bourbon vanilla was warm and toasty – a pleasing mix of bourbon and vanilla.

In comparison, the vodka vanilla had a more traditional vanilla taste and fragrance and was quite delicious, too. Depending upon what you are baking, this one may be a more appropriate choice. I will certainly be happy to bake with the vodka vanilla and to use it when I want a more subtle hint of vanilla. Either way, you can’t go wrong with homemade vanilla and I encourage you to try it. A more cost effective source of vanilla beans than the grocery store is to order them online (Amazon.com sells them fairly reasonably) and make a large amount of vanilla extract. The vanilla will last indefinitely in your cupboard - or not, if you bake as often as I do. And if you have a surplus of vanilla beans (a happy situation indeed) you can slip a split bean into a jar of sugar to create vanilla infused sugar. Happy baking!

Vanilla Extract
Makes 1 cup

6 vanilla beans
1 cup of your chosen alcohol (vodka, bourbon or rum)

Have a clean, dry jar and lid ready (I used 1 pint Mason jars). Split each vanilla bean lengthwise and use your knife to scrape the beans out into the jar. Add the vanilla pods (push them down or cut in half if needed). Pour in the alcohol, screw on the jar lid and gently shake. Label the jar with the date (and type of alcohol if using different ones) and place in a dark spot for ten weeks. Once a week, give the jar a little shake.

Bourbon Spiked Plum Jam: Going Plum Crazy (In a Happy Way)

I’ve been in a cozy mood this week with the darker mornings and drizzly days. The tips of the maple leaves on the tree outside my window are tinted red. Autumn is truly here and I’m embracing it.

One afternoon, after doing some chicken chores in the wet backyard, I glanced at a bowl of Italian plums sitting on the kitchen counter and my thoughts turned to jam. Making jam is a homey task, right up there with kneading bread. I felt chilled from the damp air and a bubbling pot on the stove sounded very appealing.

After chopping the plums and stirring them together with sugar and lemon juice in a sauce pan, I pulled a bottle of bourbon from the liquor cabinet and added a couple of healthy splashes to the mix. The kitchen filled with a pleasant, plummy, boozy scent and I inhaled deeply as I stirred. Not a bad way to pass the afternoon!

The skins of the Italian plums turned their yellow flesh a rich, deep purple. Before half an hour had passed, I had a luscious pot of jam (and a burned tongue from taste testing!).

I waited impatiently for the jam to cool. I had picked up a loaf of bread on impulse that morning (studded with pears, hazelnuts and figs ... you understand these impulses) and I was dying to try a slice with the jam. Then I spied mascarpone cheese in the fridge and the afternoon got even better.

I was swooning and licking my fingers. Thick slices of bread (remember the pears, hazelnuts and figs), a generous spread of mascarpone cheese and a big scoop of plum jam to top it off. Heavenly to indulge in, especially while sipping tea and looking out at the mist turning to rain.

Bourbon Spiked Plum Jam
Makes almost 1 pint

1 pound (about 2 1/2 cups) Italian plums, washed, pitted and diced
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons bourbon

Combine all the ingredients in a medium sized sauce pan. Bring to a boil, then lower heat and let simmer rapidly for about half an hour, until the mixture thickens and looks jammy. Stir the jam often to prevent sticking.

When cool, ladle into a 1 pint Mason jar. Jam will keep for 1 month in the fridge (but it won’t last that long!).