Birthday Shots

Today is our friend Derek’s birthday, and yesterday was his cousin Brad’s.  We, along with some other friends, spent the holiday weekend at Derek’s family’s place at the beach.  In honor of Derek and Brad, I decided to try out making Birthday Shots. 

In my mind, the quintessential birthday cake is yellow cake with chocolate frosting and sprinkles on top.  I went ahead and baked up a yellow cupcake mix from a box.  But instead of using a canned chocolate frosting, I decided to do something a little special.  I made dark chocolate ganache with a little crème de cacao.  With Jeff’s help, I topped off each with rainbow sprinkles and a candle in each.

I decided to torture the group a little.  Jeff and I had shown up to the beach house early and prepped everything before everyone else arrived, but the air conditioning hadn’t caught up, so the ganache hadn’t set as much as I’d hoped.  I made the group all wait until the next night to serve the shots (though birthday boy Brad snuck a few throughout the day.) 

We lit the candles, sung the song, and the guys blew them out.   The Birthday Shots were a resounding success.    

Toasty S'more Shot

The first time I ever met my friend Frank, we were out to dinner at a trendy restaurant that serves all their desserts in shot glasses.  The servers carry the desserts around on a tray so that they can present them to the patrons, allowing them to pick them up immediately and partake.  It certainly appeals to our society’s desire for instant gratification.

A couple of drinks in, but before our dinner was severed, our waitress stopped by to check in on us.  She had the dessert tray with her, and Frank was mesmerized by one dessert in particular.  The S’more was basically chocolate mousse and graham cracker crumbles with a toasted marshmallow on top.   Frank wanted to order one then and there.  We talked him into waiting until after dinner.

That was the moment I was first inspired to create a dessert in an edible shot glass.  Rather than layer the graham cracker and chocolate, I decided to fabricate the shot glass out of graham cracker crust and fill it with chocolate pudding.  And since it is shot glass shaped, it only makes since to me that is should be spiked with alcohol.  In this case, I used Irish Cream.  And, of course, I topped it off with toasted mini marshmallows.