Posts

Showing posts from May, 2010

The Triple Threat: White Lady, White Spider, and Chelsea Sidecar

It's all about the proportions and never more so than when making cocktails evidently. Perhaps as there are relatively few ingredients, one can taste the differences better. You may recall that, making good use of our Mr. Boston Official Bartender's Guide, Tom and I were enjoying the difference that a cocktail can make on the weekends. One of our favorites is the Chelsea Sidecar, which recipe I will repeat below for the sake of simple comparison. It has also become our favorite way to tease test bartenders. We have not yet come across one who knew the recipe or, even more sadly, even had a Mr. Boston book to look it up in. I have written the proportions down on a card to carry in my purse as inevitably I must give the waiter the recipe. At which time, it becomes a test of the waiter's ability to convey the information. Chelsea Sidecar 1/2 oz. lemon juice 3/4 oz. Triple Sec (we use Cointreau) 3/4 oz. gin Shake with ice and strain into chilled cocktail glass. =============

Lemon Cake

This cake is from Betty Crocker's Cake Decorating . Following the tradition from when we were little, I got this book so the girls could choose whatever cake they wanted for their birthdays. Yes, I even made a Dinosaur Cake one year. It didn't look half bad either. The great thing about Betty Crocker cookbooks is that they really have been tested well so the recipes are foolproof. This cake is the Spring Flower Cake which has Yellow Layer Cake with Lemon Butter Frosting. Between the layers I used Lemon Filling from the Umbrella Shower Cake, which was similar to a lemon pie filling and quite deliciously tart. (Quite meaning "very" in the American sense, not the British usage ... which I found out a while back when listening to CraftLit means "so so." Language use is so interesting, isn't it?) Anyway, back to the recipe. All the above use of pieces from here and there was because I dislike White Mountain Frosting (a 7-minute boiled frosting that is simila