Non-alcoholic spirits: Strykk Not G*n review

Sunny days are invariably linked in my mind with cocktails - probably as they remind me of beach holidays from two decades ago when my main requirement for a holiday was sun, a hotel pool and a drink with a little umbrella!

Back then, the cocktails were usually strong - in Greece I remember them being heavy on the spirit, light on the mixer - and I would usually go for something like sex on the beach or pina colada.

I still prefer my cocktails sweet over sour but these days as I’m either more discerning or just can’t cope with hangovers any more - I’d rather have one or two expertly crafted cocktails served in a martini glass where the spirit stands out and the predominant taste isn’t grenadine.

But as a busy mum and someone who doesn’t get to go out much at all, sometimes I want a delicious drink to enjoy in my garden in the evening that isn’t actually alcohol but still feels like the experience of sipping a cocktail from a martini glass.

I think this desire for a sophisticated cocktail experience at home - but without the alcohol - is what has led to the rise of alcohol free spirits. Seedlip say they created the first range of distilled non-alcoholic spirits, blending a range of botanicals to create three flavours - grove, garden and spice. Other companies have followed in their footsteps and I came across Strykk, which makes what it calls 'proper' non-alcoholic alternatives, like Not G*n which is a botanicals and juniper based alternative to gin, Not R*m (rum alternative) and Not V*dka - a vodka alternative which has recently been followed by a vanilla vodka alternative which I really rate.

We had a party for a family birthday recently and as there were almost entirely non-drinkers (either because they don't drink anyway or they were driving) I made a big pitcher of punch - a mixture of cloudy apple juice, elderflower cordial and sparkling water (you can also use soda water). It's nice with a few sprigs of mint added too. It tasted even better with a little Not G*n added!

Another drink I had considered making but didn't in the end was a rhubarb sour with Not G*n, rhubarb syrup and lemon juice, topped up with soda water.

I feel like there are so many new possibilities open with a grown up non-alcoholic alternative to spirits and I have already bought the vanilla vodka alternative to add to my gin - or not gin rather. Have you tried any non-alcoholic spirits and which ones do you recommend?

Cheers!

Back to the Future: 1.21 Gigawatts Wake-Up Juice

 

 

There’s one 80s movie that consistently comes top of the ‘100 greatest’ lists. It was never one of my favourites – the male leads, sci-fi theme and plot that revolved essentially around a car – never really appealed to me as a little girl. But I always enjoyed it when the film came on TV and conjured up a picture of the future, where we had self-tying trainers, self-drying clothes and hoverboards.

 

That movie is of course Back to the Future, and do you know what day it is today? October 21, 2015 is the day in the second movie that Marty went forward to…. In the future. Well, we may not have all the things the film predicted, but in some cases, we are not that far off.  Lexus has managed to invent a hoverboard (of sorts),

 

 

  

mobile tablets and wearable technology is here to stay and Pepsi has launched a limited edition Pepsi Perfect to tie in with the film today.

  

I wanted to make something based on the film, and struggled a little – I’d love to make a cake in the shape of the Delorean but time is not on my side. Instead, one detail stood out – in the first movie, the Delorean needed 1.21 gigawatts of electricity to make the return trip. That much power can only be generated by a nuclear plant, or a bolt of lightening, which is how the movie culminates in a race to connect a wire from the clock tower during a storm.

 

There’s another scene where two characters give a drink called “wake-up juice” to Doc after he has drunk too much in a saloon in the 1800s, which revitalizes him quickly (and unpleasantly).

 

I decided to combine these two things into my own recipe, for what I’m calling:

 

1.21 Gigawatts Wake-Up Juice

An original recipe by Caroline Makes

 

Half a can of Red Bull

1 shot Raspberry vodka (Absolut is good)

1 shot tequila

Blue Bols foam - this is something I bought ages ago online and forgot until now I had. It comes in different flavours - I have cassis - and it comes with a pump you insert into the bottle. It turns the liquid into a foam so you can get it to sit on top of the drink, but it still tastes alcoholic, which is really cool - and I think makes this drink a bit futuristic!

 

Before the foam is added...

and after!

Cheers!

 

Sex on the Beach Cupcakes

I was wondering what to make for Calendar Cakes, as the theme this month is "Summer lovin'". The suggestions include summer holiday memories, and I was wondering how I could bake a cake relating to Butlins, where I spent many a childhood holiday.... funnily enough I see that the Beaver Club has now changed its name to the rather more politically correct Club Red (as the entertainers are called the Redcoats).

But while we're on the subject of smut, the other thing that summer means to me is sex on the beach - not literally (I imagine the sand would get everywhere!) but the cocktail. It's a pretty girly drink with a very sweet taste, made with vodka, peach schnapps, orange juice and grenadine, and usually served with a little umbrella. I have had many of these at beach bars on various Greek islands... so I wanted to turn the flavours into a cake. I have to admit though that I did my usual thing of not having the right ingredients... I decided on the spur of the moment to make these for a small gathering I was going to the next day, so I had to make do with what I had in the cupboard! I only had one egg in the house as well so halved the quantity of ingredients I would usually use and made six small cupcakes out of it.

Sex on the Beach cupcakes

an original recipe by Caroline Makes

This recipe makes 6 small cupcakes so feel free to double it.

1 egg

50g butter, softened

50g caster sugar

50g self-raising flour

2 tbsp vodka

2 tbsp orange juice or 1 tbsp neat orange squash

1 tbsp grenadine

50g butter, softened 

100g icing sugar

1 tbsp peach schnapps or peach liqueur

cocktail umbrellas, Dr. Oetker neon sugar and coloured fondant to decorate

Preheat the oven to 180C. Cream the butter and the sugar then add the egg and fold in the flour.

Add the cocktail flavours- I saved the peach for the icing, and used vodka, grenadine, and orange squash as I didn't have any juice.

Add to the cake batter and mix - it will turn pale pink from the grenadine.

In keeping with the cocktail theme I decided to use these leopard print cupcake cases, which I got from Tesco. It wasn't that long ago that you had to go to a specialist online retailer to find patterned cake cases so I'm really pleased now that Tesco does them. They also have a shoe design one that I used for my birthday party last year, that cost me rather more from an online retailer!
Fill the cake cases with the batter.

Bake for about 15 minutes

Cream the butter and icing sugar to make buttercream and add the peach schnapps or liqueur. If the mixture is too runny, add some more icing sugar. You don't need this to be thick enough to pipe swirls but it does need to stay on the cupcake.

I was sent this Dr. Oetker neon sugar a little while ago. It has four separate compartments, each with its own lid, with blue, yellow, pink and green. I like the container as it makes it very easy to use one colour at a time. If you were sprinkling this over cakes it would go a long way, but if you are completely covering a cupcake, as I have done below, you will get about three out of each colour sugar (so 12 from this tub in total).

I had the idea of making my cupcakes look like a beach - this is why I spread the buttercream evenly. I used the yellow neon sugar on half of each cupcake, to represent sand, and blue neon sugar on the other half to represent the ocean.

I had some cocktail umbrellas in the drawer, and I also made a pair of flip flops from blue fondant and used an edible gem to decorate them.

I also used the blue fondant to make a shark's fin!

The cupcake at the back has a pair of goggles and a snorkel

 I bought this mini cupcake stand from the Dot Com Gift Shop; I absolutely love it. It was only £3.95 and is just the right size to display one cupcake; it has a really cute pattern and mini cakes hanging off the sides.

 Top-down view of one of the cakes on the mini cake stand

All packaged up and ready to go! My verdict: the cakes were really light and springy, and tasted good though I wouldn't have been able to pick out the sex on the beach flavours if I didn't already know - maybe I need to add more vodka next time! The neon sugar worked really well - as well as being easy to use, it held its colour and didn't sink in or bleed into the buttercream despite having been made the night before. Eating the neon sugar also gives a satisfying crunch that worked well as it was supposed to represent sand!

I'm sending this to Calendar Cakes, hosted by Laura of Laura Loves Cakes and Rachel of DollyBakes. I think a sex on the beach cake fits very literally with the theme of summer lovin'!

The theme for this month's Baking with Spirit, hosted by Janine at Cake of the Week, is an alcoholic ingredient that represents summer. Peach schnapps or liqueur itself, as well as the sex on the beach cocktail, says summer to me!

I've also just realised this cake contains grenadine, and the letter that my Alphabakes co-host Ros of The More Than Occasional Baker has chosen for the challenge this month is G.

Watermelon Cocktail

I like to think I'm quite good at using up leftovers. Recently, I bought a quarter of a watermelon for £1 from Morrisons. I used it to make salmon with watermelon salsa (which I haven't blogged yet, but will); watermelon and feta salad and this chilled watermelon soup with crayfish, which tasted amazing. There was still a little watermelon left even after all that, so I decided to make a cocktail.

This cocktail doesn't have a name as I just grabbed some of the open bottles from my cupboard. The leftover watermelon had been blended to a liquid with a dash of white wine for the soup; I mixed the remains of the liquid in a cocktail shaker with some vodka and triple sec and strained it into a cocktail glass. Now that's what I call using up leftovers!

Russian Doll Matryoshka Birthday Cake

For the past few years I've chosen a theme for my birthday party and made a cake and other treats to fit in with the theme. This year I wanted to make a cake based on a Russian doll, or matryoshka - I've loved them ever since I went to Moscow a couple of years ago and have several things in my house with that design. I also thought it would be a fairly simple but effective design for a birthday cake. I have to give a hat tip to Alys Cakes and Bakes for the design and decorating idea.

I also remembered having seen a similar sort of cake in Fiona Cairns' Birthday Cake Book, though the cakes look quite different - Fiona gives instructions for how to carve the cakes so they stand up, and makes a selection of varying sizes (like the dolls which stack inside each other). She also decorates them with a paintbrush and edible colours, but I wanted to make a flat cake and preferred to cover it with coloured fondant.

I did use the recipe for the actual cake from the Fiona Cairns book though as I thought it would fit in well with the Russian theme and make a nice change from chocolate.

Lime and Vodka Syrup Cake

I doubled the quantities below to make two cakes to sandwich together.

100g butter

250g self-raising flour

30g cornflour

pinch of salt

4 eggs

300g caster sugar

grated zest and juice of 1 lime

150g creme fraiche

For the syrup:

2 tbsp sugar syrup (or make your own by melting sugar into the other ingredients below)

1 tbsp vodka

juice of half a lime

For the buttercream:

100g butter

100g icing sugar

juice of half a lime

1 tbsp vodka

Preheat the oven to 160C. Break the eggs into a mixing bowl - I was glad to be able to use my KitchenAid as this made it a lot easier!

Juice your lime

Add the sugar and lime zest and juice to the eggs until light and fluffy

Fold in the creme fraiche

Then beat in the flour, cornflour and salt. Melt the butter and beat that in as well.

I decided to cook the cake mixture in a medium-sized roasting pan as I wanted a flat sheet cake I could cut out. It took about an hour to bake - the recipe recommends 50-60 minutes but it will depend on your oven and the size/depth of your cake tin.

Here's the cooked cake - just the right size.

I then made the same quantity of cake again (as I realised one would not be enough) and allowed them both to cool.

I have these three decorative boxes from Paperchase sitting on my bedroom windowsill. I decided to use the large one as a template and cut the cake out following the shape of the doll.

I sat the top part of the box on the cake and carefully cut around it.

I wanted to use the leftover cake from around the edges to make cake pops like these Russian doll cake pops like these, but I didn't have time.

To make the syrup, you can make your own sugar syrup but I managed to get this bottle from Tesco, which was only a few pounds and came in very handy when we made cocktails later!

And here's some vodka...

... and I used bottled lime juice for the syrup as I decided at this point to save the rest of the limes for cocktails as well! I don't have a picture but I just mixed those three ingredients and used a silicon pastry brush to brush the syrup over the top and sides of the cake.

I made buttercream by mixing butter and icing sugar then adding a little lime juice and vodka.

I spread buttercream between the two layers of cake then a thin coating on the top and sides of the cake.

Now for the decorating... I took a block of white sugarpaste - about 200g - and some blue food colouring (I  prefer to use gel or paste than a liquid colouring as the colour is more vibrant and it isn't so runny).

I kneaded the blue colouring into the sugar paste and rolled it out.

I used the blue sugarpaste to cover the bottom two-thirds of the cake, then coloured some more sugarpaste pink and covered the top part of the cake. I cut the bottom of the pink sugarpaste so it would look like the bottom of a shawl around the doll's neck - you'll see what I mean later.

This is a cute little mould I bought over the internet, intending to use it for another cake, but I realised it would come in handy here. I pressed a small piece of the leftover pink sugarpaste into the mould to make a mouth.

I wanted to decorate the bottom part of the doll - her dress - with flowers. I have a set of different-sized cutters and used yellow and white sugarpaste for contrast. I stuck the flowers on with edible glue.

I cut out a circle of white sugarpaste for the face, and made cheeks and eyes out of small pieces of sugarpaste, then added the lips and some hair.

I also found some Russian doll ribbon on Ebay and bought a length, which I put around the bottom of the cake.

And here's the cake!

It tasted delicious - really light and the flavour of the lime came through with a more subtle hint of vodka. I was really pleased with the way it turned out!

This month's No Waste Food Challenge has using up leftover spirits and cordials as its theme, and while that's not why I made this cake, it does use vodka and I guess if you had a bottle knocking around in the cupboard and couldn't think of anything to do with it* you could make this cake!
*Or if you want a better idea of what to do with vodka I'll be posting some cocktail recipes soon!

The No Waste Food Challenge is hosted by Kate at Turquoise Lemons.