Our Screwdriver Cupcakes come from the idea of turning your favorite cocktail into a cake. We have a whole section on Cocktail Cakes in Booze Cakes. These are all recipes that are inspired by popular drinks. The cocktail cakes are really fun to make, because essentially you are mixing multiple ingredients into the batter in a similar way to mixing a cocktail. Plus garnishing cakes is just as fun as garnishing your drinks!

Screwdrivers are a casual drink- candy like and one the most popular introductory cocktail for the novice drinker. (I still recall that one particular incident with Screwdrivers in college and shudder. OK, enough of that.)

Our cupcakes with orange juice, orange zest, orange vodka, coconut, and topped with sweet orangey buttercream frosting are the perfect casual cake and are easy to make. They are a playful addition to a youthful dinner or dessert cocktail party.

The batter recipe itself is pretty straightforward for these Screwdrivers. The addition of a little orange zest and coconut definitely perks up the flavor. When I made my recent batch, I used Absolut Mandarin vodka which is delicious all by itself. However, instead of the lovely Orange Vodka Buttercream, I frosted the cupcakes with a glossy Dark Chocolate Frosting. Really a nice variation!

You’ll find the recipe for Screwdriver Cupcakes on page 118 of Booze Cakes.
-posted by Terry

Seriously, what says “par-tay” like shots? Here’s a new way to enjoy them: Cake Shooters. We’ve got a whole section in our book on them. You’ll find how to make Long Island Ice Tea Cakes, Mocha Rum Brownie Bites, and Jelly Cake Shots— our version of the perennial Frat Boy favorite. Here’s the recipe for those. We’ve included Appeltinis, Cosmos, Mojitos, Screwdrivers, and many more. Once you get the process down, the flavor combos are unlimited. Cake Shots could definitely liven up your 4th of July holiday celebrations and keep them smiling all Summer!

Krystina takes us through a brief history of booze cakes over on our publisher’s blog. She lists her top 5 most memorable cakes traditionally made with alcohol, and reveals that her personal favorite of these is the Black Forest Cake. It’s a cake that incorporates dark chocolate, sour cherry, and kirsch (a cherry liqueur). In Booze Cakes we re-imagined this traditional confection as cupcakes that feature all the typical ingredients plus chocolate pudding, a black cherry compote, and spiked cherry whipped cream. Get our recipe for German Black Forest Cupcakes.

Who hasn’t seen the distinctive square bottle and ornate black label of the world famous Jack Daniel’s® Tennessee Whiskey? It’s strongly linked to bad boy culture, and immortalized in songs, movies, and novels. Recently, I read in Vanity Fair magazine about the torrid affair of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, and that perhaps, Liz liked Jack a bit too much at the time.

If you are a baker, you ought to know Jack. This sour mash whiskey is filtered through sugar maple charcoal and aged in oak barrels to give it it’s own special refined flavor. This “charcoal-mellowing” produces a whiskey with a dark golden coppery color, a full aroma with notes of wood, charcoal and fruit, and a balanced sweetness that warms the throat as it slides down. It’s known as a smooth sippin’ whiskey and it is the secret ingredient in our Black Jack Praline Cake, which features a spiced sweet sweet potato cake, crunchy pecan praline topping, and a smooth buttery whiskey sauce.

By the way, why this whiskey was labeled “Old No. 7” by its inventor, Jasper Newton “Jack” Daniel, is a mystery to this day, and a source of myth and legend. Some believe that the current version we enjoy is based on the 7th generation of the recipe created by Daniel. Some say he misplaced a batch of his whiskey for 7 years, found it, and based on that taste, distilled it that way ever since. Other legends have it that the name had to do with the barrels being labeled that way for railroad shipping. Still others note that Mr. Jack had 7 girlfriends, or that he signed his name with a “J” that looked a lot like a “7.” There are those who say, Daniel simply thought 7 was a lucky number. We’ll never know, because when he died in 1911, he took the secret to his grave. All Krystina and I know for sure is that baking with Old No. 7 is a really good idea!
-posted by Terry

The Mudslide Cake is a seriously rich mashup of coffee, chocolate, caramel and Irish cream liqueur. I made it last for my friend Janet’s birthday celebration. The ingredients for this cake are delicious all by themselves, so you can just imagine how great they are when combined.

One of the things about this recipe is that the cake batter itself is very stiff and kind of dry, almost like frosting. (See the photo, below, of the Mudslide batter while it’s still in my trusty KitchenAid Artisan stand mixer, also known as “Big Red.”)

Don’t be alarmed if this happens, just spread it out into your pans and all will be well. See how small it looks in the photo, below left. Kinda seems like it’s not enough, right? Not true.

The batter spread out in the pan is thin when you make a 3-layer cake like I did for Janet’s Mudslide. Make sure to even up the batter, by spreading well and gently shaking the pans, so that you get consistent layers. Otherwise your cake may be more of a Mudslide than you ever intended. Seriously.

When it goes into the oven all that magical baking chemistry happens, and everything works out very nicely. See the photo at the bottom, left.

The cake itself has a mild mocha flavor. It doesn’t at all overpower the other yummy Mudslide components – the caramel and cream.

Try it for yourself! The recipe is on Page 95.
-posted by Terry

You can order Booze Cakes right now on Amazon.com. We’ve received notice from them that the book shipped on May 24^th. Some people have already got their copy.  Just in time for Memorial Day backyard BBQs and those Graduation Parties you have coming up. What could be more fun than adding a booze cake to the menu? A Tequila Sunrise Cake (pictured left) might be in order; see the recipe here!

Thank you for visiting the Booze Cakes website! We are happy to launch this site as a source for information about the book, as well as a place to share ideas, stories and photos about baking with all kinds of alcohol. We think booze is an amazing flavoring and a whole lot of fun. We hope you enjoy our book and this site!