This past weekend I had the chance to hang out with some good friends of mine and celebrate my dear friend Kate’s birthday!  We thought it would be fun to try out a couple new drinks and have some appetizers, so my friend Matt was in charge of two drinks and I was in charge of one drink and the dessert.  It was my first time trying out drink recipes and I had a lot of fun!  I decided to try a recipe from Elizabeth Falkner’s book Demolition Desserts.  Once I read that this drink had passion fruit juice in it I knew I had to try it…and to make matters even more interesting the title of the drink was “Shagadelic”!  Elizabeth says that this recipe was made to match her “Shag cake” that was quite popular with her customers at Citizen Cake.  

As you can see from these photos this is definitely not my typical food photo shoot, but I still wanted to share these pictures and recipe with you…hope you enjoy them!  

Shagadelic

adapted from Demolition Desserts

serves two 

(I changed some things in the recipe…like the sugar rim instead of a shredded coconut rim and a strawberry instead of a maraschino cherry) 

1/2 c. bottled passion, such as Looza brand

1 T. Cointreau

1/4 c. white rum, such as 10 Cane brand

2 T. coconut rum, such as Malibu brand

Juice of 1/2 lime

Ice cubes

A couple strawberries

Sugar for the rim

Rub one of the cut limes around the edge of the glasses and then dip into sugar.

In a cocktail shaker, combine passion fruit juice, Cointreau, white and coconut rum, and lime juice.  Fill the shaker with ice, cover, and shake.

Strain into the sugar-rimmed glasses and add a sliced strawberry to the rim.  

Like I said earlier, my friend Matt made two drinks for us too…both which were a lot of fun and delicious too!  The first drink he made was a Peach Bellini.  He said you just need a good sparkling wine and a scoop of peach sorbet and presto dingdough your done!  

The other drink he made took a little preparation beforehand, but was really yummy and looked beautiful too!  He infused vodka with strawberries for 2 days or so and then drained the vodka from the jar.  (The strawberries definitely lose their beauty in the infusing process and end up looking more like little tongues, but the end result is worth it!)

Matt added simple syrup (equal parts of sugar and water heated until dissolved), mint, and ice to the strawberry vodka and muddled it around.  Overall, a really great drink!

Sadly I don’t have a great picture of the end result, but take my word for it…it’s a winner!  Thanks Matt!

To end the night off right I thought that I should try out a gift that my husband’s aunt had gotten me…a Skookie Cast Iron Skillet!!!  I had some leftover Peanut Butter M&M Monster cookie dough, so I thought it would make the perfect birthday dessert…and it did!  Here is the birthday girl with her own Skookie aka pizza cookie.

Hope you had a great birthday Kate!  Thanks for being such a great friend!