Orange & Black Shot

Happy Halloween! 

A couple of weeks ago, my cousin Cherise’s family came to town to visit for the weekend.  We had dinner at my folks' house one night, and I decided to bring along a trio of Halloween themed Shotibles.  Over the past couple of weeks, I posted about two of them; the Pumpkin Spice Latte Shot and the Candy Bar Shot.  For the third Halloween Shotible, I made a treat specifically for Cherise; the Orange and Black Shot.

Cherise loves the combination of orange sorbet and chocolate cookie crust.  While the flavor isn’t exactly specific to the holiday, the colors sure are.  For the glass, I used the chocolate sandwich cookie recipe again.  I made the filling with a combination of sweetened condensed milk and cream cheese.  I gave it the orange flavoring with Triple Sec and the orange tint with food coloring.  I then froze the Shotibles overnight.

The result was a great combination of tangy citrus and chocolate crumble shot with a look perfect for Halloween.

Orange Cream Ice Pop Shot

The northeast has been slammed with a massive heat wave over the past few days, so there was absolutely no way I was baking this week.  So, I went the exact opposite direction and made my first frozen Shotible.  An orange cream ice pop seemed to be the perfect treat to cool down on a sweltering summer day. 

This pop was a bit more of a challenge than I had anticipated.   I chose to make this one a little bit inside out.  I wanted to make the outside (the glass, if you will) the spiked part.  I tried out three different bases; plain orange soda pop, diet orange soda pop and orange juice.  I was concerned that plain soda pop would be difficult to freeze because of all the sugar.  Adding alcohol, which has a lower freezing temperature than water, concerned me as well.  It turned out that the plain soda pop worked best, but I did learn that it’s best to get the carbonation out before you freeze.  I mixed in some whipped cream vodka to add the creamy flavor.

For the inside, I made my own version of ice cream.  I wanted something that would hold up well and support the Shotible on a stick.  I found a recipe that used my new favorite ingredient, sweetened condensed milk.  It was remarkable how much it tasted like real vanilla ice cream.  As a bonus, I had some ice cream left over.  Yum!