Marx Foods Challenge - Cocktails and Mocktails

It's been a while since I have participated in one of the Marx Foods challenges, but when I heard that it was for Cocktails and Mocktails I said to myself, "Self, it's about time you got your challenge on." 
So I sent an email to Kate and lo and behold...   a box full of goodies showed up with the challenge to create a Cocktail and a Mocktail using at least 1 of the ingredients from the goody box in each one.... No repeats.

I suppose this is as good of a place as any to put the disclaimer statement in.....  so here it goes...

I am not employed by Marx Foods, I have never been employed by Marx Foods, nor am I related to anyone (that I know of) who is or has been employed by Marx Foods.  I am not being paid by Marx foods for any of the opinions contained within this blog post.  I am of sound mind and body (most of the time anyway) and therefore all opinions below are my very own.  :)  

OK, now that that part is out of the way, lemme tell ya what they sent me for the challenge....

Dried Pineapple, Saffron, Long Pepper, Dill Pollen, Fennel Pollen and Juniper Berries.

Hmmmm....  Juniper Berries are already a key ingredient in Gin so that was out, and I have used so much Fennel Pollen over the years that even the Dill Pollen couldn't inspire me into something.  Dried Pineapple?  Well, I do like Pina Coladas and gettin' caught in the rain, but I prefer fresh Pineapple for that.  SO.......

This will be all about Saffron and Long Pepper.

But the saffron will be first, cause I'm just wild about saffron......  Not saffron powder, which is often cut with tumeric and ground safflower stamens (making it uber-bitter and not at all very saffron-esque), but good saffron.  Nice red stamens of grassy effervescence are my favorite.  As a result, they often need to be soaked in warm water to release their color, flavor and fragrance.

For my Cocktail I decided to combine Saffron Simple Syrup with Rose Water, Silver Tequila and Lemon Juice.  My original name was going to be the Spanish Rose.... But I looked it up on the Internet and some fancy bartender in San Francisco has already laid claim to the name for a cocktail with a saffron foam on top (evidently I am on the right track with the syrup)  So I have now dubbed this the "Mellow Yellow"  For it IS very yellow, and it is definitely for those that are wild about saffron.

Saffron Simple syrup is, well, very simple.....

Place 1 1/4 cups Hot water in a sauce pan.
Add about 1/2 tsp Saffron Stamens to the warm water and allow them to soak for an hour.

Slowly, but surly, it will turn more and more yellow.

Place the saucepan over LOW heat and pour in 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar.

Stir until it is clear, then bring the whole thing to a simmer/slow boil.

Boil for 5 minutes.

Remove the pan from the flame and allow to cool for 20 minutes.

Strain out the spent saffron stamens.

Pour into a glass bottle, stopper and keep in a cool dark place to maintain the saffron's integrity.

Spanish Gold in a bottle.

For the Mellow Yellow Cocktail........

Grab a shaker and fill it with the following.
1 Jigger (1 1/2 oz) Tequila Blanco (I chose Corazon silver)
Juice of 1 Medium Lemon (which is about 1 1/2 oz or a jigger)
1 TB Saffron Simple Syrup (maybe a little more, if your not as much of a sour puss as I am)
1 1/2 tsp Rose Water
Crushed Ice

Shake all the ingredients together and strain into a Martini-ish glass.

Garnish with a rose stabbed through a lemon slice and float on top like a Spanish Galleon.

(I was really stuck on the whole Spanish thing)

Now, lets talk some long pepper.  Yes my friends, long pepper has been around a long time... The Romans used it profusely...  Somewhere along the line, through many centuries of history, the Peppercorn gained favor and graces almost every table in America.  I had heard and seen Long Pepper several times in gourmet shops and the like, but didn't bite.  I was much too obsessed with my Tellicherry and Malabar Black Peppercorns and my Swarak White Pepper Corns and the occasional foray into Green Peppercorns...  Not to mention the "Pink" Peppercorns that aren't really Pepper at all.

So now here I am with a sampler of Long Pepper... Ya know what... It tastes just like Black pepper, BUT, it's a little sweeter, and smells slightly more floral...  (sigh)  I think I am hooked now. 

I decided to put it to the test with my Mocktail.

One of my favorite things to do is to "pepper" my Strawberries to bring out their flavor... I know it sounds weird, but the Italians have been doing it for centuries and I think it's about time the citizens of the U.S. caught up.  Another one of my favorite things, that is a little more commonplace here in the U.S. is Lemon pepper.  I love lemon and pepper together.... and that is what gave me the idea... I love Lemon and Pepper, Strawberries and Pepper and I love Strawberry Lemonade so why can't I combine all three into a Trifecta of thirst quenching deliciousness?

Thus I present......  Strawberry Lemon Long Pepper-ade

Select 3 ripe and juicy strawberries....

Remove the tops and cut in half (this will make muddling a little easier)

Place your Long Pepper in a pepper grinder (I had to break mine up just a little bit)

Apply a few grinds of Long Pepper to your slices Strawberries.

Move the strawberries to a cocktail shaker along with some broken ice.

Muddle until you have achieved a "puree".

Add your favorite Lemonade and stir, then pour into an awaiting glass.

Garnish with a Long Peppered Strawberry.

Cin Cin!!
~~

Takin' It Nice And Slow - Sloe Gin Fizz

Have you ever noticed how thing get lost in translation from one generation to the next? Such it is with cocktails.

I spent my 20's pretty much just content to drink anything that would make me feel tipsy, and on occasion, way too drunk to drive, thus needing a cab ride to get home. I also remember wanting to order all those "Fun" drinks.... You know the ones.... "Sex on the Beach", "Surfer on Acid".... And hey, when you are a 21 year old male and your bartendress is hot, what guy doesn't want to ask her for a "Blow Job"? Yeah, I was one of those guys.

Luckily, I grew up.

This brings me to a common misconception about drink names, or at least the classic drink names. After all, that sickening combination of Baileys and Kahlua topped off with sweetened whipped cream (gag) is fairly "new" to the scene. I am talking about those other favorites of the 20's generation. The Slow Screw, the Long Slow Screw, Long Slow Comfortable Screw followed by the resounding Long Slow Comfortable Screw Against the Wall. OYE!

Yeah, the names sound, well, naughty, and that is why they are ordered by the 20 somethings. But that is simply because they don't know how to speak "Bartender".

It's "Sloe" not Slow... As in Sloe Gin. A delightful combination of 70% Sloe berry Liqueur (made from the Buckthorn Plum) and 30% London Dry Gin.

But let's tear this down all the way.

The "Screw" refers to the Screwdriver of cocktail fame... You know, Vodka & OJ. The "Long" refers to the glass. Thus a "Long" drink is usually in a Highball glass (or a Collins). The "Wall"? No, it's not a Pink Floyd album either... It refers to Galliano, a quintessential element in the Harvey Wallbanger; which is a Screwdriver with a little Galliano. And trust me, if you have one too many of those, you will be banging into walls and every other inanimate object in your path. Finally, the "Comfortable" means Southern Comfort.

Let's run a full translation of these drinks in the Screwdriver family?

• Sloe Screw - Sloe Gin & Orange Juice in a rocks glass
  
• Long Sloe Screw - Sloe Gin, Vodka & Orange Juice in a Highball glass
• Sloe Comfortable Screw - Sloe Gin, Southern Comfort & Orange Juice in a rocks glass
  
• Long Sloe Comfortable Screw - Sloe Gin, Southern Comfort, Vodka & Orange Juice in a Highball Glass
• Long Sloe Comfortable Screw against the Wall - Slow Gin, Southern Comfort, Vodka, Galliano & Orange Juice in a Highball glass.

There ya have it; classic drinks, all victim of their names; now being ordered solely by the "Spring Break" crowd due to mistranslation. 'Tis a sad, sad thing.

But I have digressed significantly from my original topic which was Slow Gin. I have noticed that it has become scarce in bars now days. Oh, don't get me wrong, the 21-25 crowd still order their Long Sloe Screws, but what they usually get is Grenadine and Vodka, not Sloe Gin.

So I want to actually talk about "Fizzes", and in particular, the Sloe Gin Fizz. Fizzes are basically "Sours" that have Club Soda or Seltzer (but sometimes sparkling wine) added to them.

There are several Fizz Cocktails, but I want to focus on the Gin Fizzes...

• Gin Fizz - Gin, Lemon, Lime, Sugar & Seltzer.
• Silver Fizz - Gin, Lemon, Lime, Sugar, Egg White & Seltzer
• Golden Fizz - Gin, Lemon, Lime, Sugar, Egg Yolk & Seltzer
• Royal Fizz - Gin, Lemon, Lime, Sugar, a Whole Egg & Seltzer
• Diamond Fizz - Gin, Lemon, Lime, Sugar & Sparkling Wine
• Finally, the Sloe Gin Fizz - Slow Gin, Lemon, Sugar & Seltzer

WARNING: Sloe Gin should not be tangled with lightly. It's not some "pretty in pink" liqueur to be scoffed at. The stuff packs a punch, particularly because you can't taste the liquor. But it IS in there, so don't treat this like some sort of adult Kool-Aid. Cause it sneaks up on ya and it packs a mighty fatal left hook.

A good English Sloe Gin is preferred, alas, I have not found one in the liquor store, so I go with de Kuyper brand,

because it claims to contain no artificial colors and no high fructose corn syrup.

(evidently, Sloe gin is sweetened in the U.S. which confounds reasoning, but oh well)

Sloe Gin Fizz

1 oz Simple Syrup (or Agave Syrup)
2 oz Fresh Lemon Juice (Bottled from concentrate isn't sour enough)
1 Jigger + 1 Pony (2 1/2 oz) Sloe Gin
Optional - 1 Egg White (the alcohol "cooks" the egg, supposedly)
Ice (or course)
4-5 oz Seltzer Water

Prep first..... Squeeze and strain your lemon juice. (My lemons were small, so it required 1 1/2 lemons to make 2 oz of juice)

Fill the shaker with ice and set aside.

Pour 1 oz (Pony) simple syrup or agave syrup into the glass.

Add 2 oz (2 Ponies) strained Lemon Juice.

Add 2 1/2 oz Sloe Gin (that's a Jigger and a Pony)

(If you are using it, add the egg white as well, I am not using it this time)

Add 4-5 oz of Seltzer water.

Pour over the ice in the shaker.

Cover the shaker and give it a couple good shakes to mix it up and cause some "fizz".

(If you added the egg white, it will trap the fizz; forming the quintessential fizzy "head" on the drink)

Pour into a Highball Glass.

Add a Lemon slice and 2 ice cubes. (there should be a maraschino cherry wrapped in the lemon, but I don't even like the smell of them, so I leave them out)

Add a straw and kick back so you can enjoy your "Cherry Phosphate".

There use to be an old time soda fountain in old Gresham when I was a kid, they served old-fashioned phosphates. That is what this cocktail always reminds me of.

Cin Cin!!
~~

Heavenly Lemon Cloud - Meyer Lemon Filled White Cake

White Cake - The mere mention of it causes some cake lovers’ blood to run cold with dread. Plagued with memories of this usually dry and crumbly, though very "white", vehicle of frosting transportation. Most seek solace in "yellow" butter cake or even cross over to the “dark side”, reaching for that ever dense & moist, rich deep devils food.

Thus was the conundrum I faced this week. I had promised that I was going to bake a cake for Patricia, one of my coworkers. So in order to keep it a secret, I had asked Diana to perform a little reconnaissance to find out, secretly, what Pat's favorite cake was. When I received the news that a lemon filled white cake was her favorite I was a aghast. I had never made a white cake before. Although my resistance to white cake had nothing to do with it's dryness..... Every "White cake" recipe I had seen always used shortening, so I had completely written them off... I understand why shortening was used, as it does not brown the way butter does, but I do not cook or bake with Shortening...

This is a personal health choice that has become somewhat of a soap box for me. Shortening is an unnatural and synthetic product not only by way of it's manufacturing, but it is foreign to the body as well. I am not going to go into too many details, but I learned this long ago, because my mother was a member of the Women's Home Extension. (back in my "knee-high to a grasshopper" days) I remember when she gave the class on synthetically hydrogenated oils and, consequently, switched from Crisco/Shortening/Margarine/Oleo back to butter for all her baking needs. The short story is this.

Unsaturated fats (which your digestive system CAN identify and break down) are bombarded with hydrogen, in the presence of nickel, until they become partially saturated, making them more solid at room temperature. The problem is, these fats do not occur in nature, your digestive system cannot recognize the "synthetic" fat and sends it to the liver just as it would for a short chained fatty acid. The liver is then forced to store it as a polymer (for all intensive purposes - a plastic) because it is incapable of breaking it down as well. Oh sure, shortenings are "Trans-Fat Free" now, which is great, but the underlying evil of what shortening is, still remains.

The point is, this is why I had never make a white cake. This is also why BakeSpace is the most awesome place on the net. You see, I had begun to panic, and had actually bought some Crisco, resigning myself to the fact that, to make her birthday cake, I was going to have to use it.

Then I was suddenly struck by an idea. I know that part of the reason for the cakes white-ness (and dryness) is the lack of egg yolks, so does butter really make THAT much of a difference? Do I REALLY need to use shortening? Cow butter is dyed with annatto seed, because it is a weird grayish ivory color. Goat butter, on the other hand, is naturally snowy white.

Was it simply a matter of using "white" ingredients to make a white cake? So I tracked down some goat butter at Whole Foods just in case and put a call out on BakeSpace, asking these questions.

Sure as the sun rises in the East, one of my BakeSpace buddies (beeps) came to the rescue. Spryte, from Spryte's Place, pointed me to the perfect recipe, which included butter instead of shortening. Not only that, but it promised to be moist with a tender crumb. Awesome! So I need to shout out to another fellow BakeSpacer.... Piday, your white cake recipe was awesome!!!

I only made 2 changes to the cake, one out of paranoia and one out of necessity. I did use the Goat butter, instead of Cow butter, and I used Lemon oil instead of lemon zest (cause I used all my lemons making the Honeyed Lemon Pine Nut Tart the other night) So I am going to post the recipe, on here, as I made it. Piday's original white cake recipe (Sorry, as of 2013, this link is broken). I did make a single batch 2 layer cake, and then decided I needed 1 more layer so I made another 1/2 batch of the recipe.

A word of caution with Goat butter - it melts at a slightly lower temperature than cow butter. This is due to it's larger percentage of short/medium chained fatty acids. (Capric, Caprylic and Caproic). Cow butter fats (Butyric, Myristic) have a higher melting point. So in order for it to "cream" with the sugar properly, it must be slightly colder that room temperature. (I didn't figure this out until I was making the third layer)

White Cake

2 1/4 cups (7.9 oz) (225g) Cake Flour
1 TB Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Kosher Salt
1 cup (8 oz) (240 ml) Whole Milk
1/4 cup (2 oz) (60 ml) Buttermilk
4 large Egg Whites
1 1/2 cups (10 oz) (285g) Granulated Sugar
10 TB (5 oz) (142 g) Unsalted Goat Butter, slightly colder than room temp
1/4 tsp Lemon oil
1 TB Simple Syrup
2 tsp Canton (Ginger cognac)

Assembly:
1 cup (8oz) Meyer Lemon Curd or Plain Lemon Curd
1 recipe 7 Minute Frosting
Zest Lemon mixed with 2-3 TB Granulated sugar for Decor
1 Lemon; Sliced

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Grease two 9 x 2 inch round cake pans and line the bottom of each pan with a round of parchment, then rub the parchment with butter as well. Do not grease the sides of the pan. (OK, I have to admit, that I DID use the Crisco for this, just because shortening doesn't brown like butter, due to lack of protein. So yes, I am a hypocrite)

Sift the Cake Flour, Baking Powder and Salt together.

Whisk the milk and egg whites together in a medium bowl.

In the bowl of your stand mixer (with the paddle attachment) or with a hand mixer and a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar together at medium speed for a 3 minutes, until they are very light and slightly fluffy. (but not too fluffy)

Mix in the extract/oil, then add one third of the flour mixture, still beating on medium speed.

Beat in half of the milk-egg mixture, then beat in half of the remaining dry ingredients until incorporated.

Add the remaining milk/egg white mixture beating until the batter is homogeneous, then add the last of the dry ingredients and continue beating the batter for 2 more minutes to ensure all ingredients are thoroughly mixed.

Divide the batter between the two pans; lift and drop the pans to force any bubbles to the top then smooth the tops with a spatula

Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until the cakes spring back when lightly touched; toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Transfer the cakes to cooling racks and cool for about 5 minutes, then run a knife around the sides of the cakes, unfold them and peel off the parchment.

Invert and cool to room temperature, right side up and gently brush away any crumbs.

I then made a 1/2 batch so I would have three layers (my oven is not big enough to fit 3 cake pans)

Mix Canton and Simple syrup, brushing the cakes while still slightly warm, on the top sides only.

Begin making 7 minute frosting.

The cakes should be cooled by now, so arrange the first layer, fastening to the board or plate with a little dollop of frosting.

Pipe a boarder around edge of the cake, then fill with 1/2 cup Meyer Lemon Curd.

Place second layer, pipe a boarder and fill with remaining Meyer Lemon Curd.

Place the third layer and empty the pastry bag over the top of the cake (just cause, I didn't want to waste any frosting)

Cover cake with the remaining 7 minute frosting (Don't bother with a crumb coat, because 7 minute frosting cannot be refrigerated)

Combine the zest of 1 lemon with 2 TB of sugar and rub together to coat, them sprinkle over the top of the cake.

Slice a lemon, then cut slices in half and place decoratively around the base of the cake.

Mangia!!
~~