This column was a ridiculous amount of fun to write—I mean when is getting drunk and then eating baked goods ever not fun?? I am definitely going to miss writing it every month and I’m a bit sad to wish it a farewell, but I think this one definitely went out with a bang.

As for what I’m baking, because that is what truly matters, I decided I wanted to try making a rustic naked cake. You may have seen them on Pinterest and such, generally they’re really pretty and look like something you would see in a fairytale tea party or something. Mine definitely didn’t turn out as pretty as most but what’s on the inside is what truly matters, right? For the cake itself I used the batter recipe from April’s Cadbury crème egg molten lava cakes because it was insanely good, and then I got really fancy with the frosting: I made a whipped cream frosting infused with whiskey. Oh yeah, I told you I was taking this one seriously.

Time started: 4:00 pm

What I’m drinking: I couldn’t finish out the last Whisks + Whiskey without drinking whiskey, could I? I still hadn’t replenished my own yet but my roommate generously let me be use some of her Jim Beam which I took a large shot of before drinking, and then I thought I would get fancy and drink wine for the rest of the baking experience. It was $3 wine, but still. I drank a solid three-fourths of the bottle which I felt was fairly impressive.

Estimated difficulty: 4/5

(I mean I was making up the frosting recipe as I went.)

Challenges (besides being intoxicated): Other than not having a hand mixer to whip up the frosting and cutting myself with a butter knife, there really weren’t too many challenges. To improvise on whipping up the frosting I just poured the cream into a mason jar and shook it until it was the consistency I wanted it to be.

Time finished: So I kind of lost track of time while making this, but I think I finished around 7.

Results:

My drunk opinion:  I actually managed to forget to taste the final result due to having to get ready for a bar crawl immediately after finishing the cake, but I did taste the frosting and batter on their own and they were delicious.

Rylee’s opinion: “Oh, I like it.”

Jake’s opinion: “Definitely a good finale.”

My sober morning opinion: Getting to have whiskey-infused whipped cream on chocolate cake is definitely the best way to start a Sunday.

Final deliciousness rating: 10/10

Since I used the cake recipe I loved from last month and then added that ~*fancy*~ whiskey frosting to it I figured this recipe deserved the perfect ten out of ten. I would definitely recommend making this sometime you need something both impressive and semi-easy. The cake recipe can be found here, and again I swapped out the chocolate syrup in the recipe for hot fudge.

The frosting is super simple: you just need a half pint of heavy whipping cream and whip it until it is whipped cream consistency, fold in powdered sugar until it is as sweet as you’d like, and then carefully mix in some whiskey. Something I forgot to add to mine was vanilla, so I’d recommend stirring some of that in too. This should make enough frosting to cover your cake and spread in between the layers. Also, if you’re not feeling whiskey I’m sure you could replace it with rum.

Thanks for reading and following me throughout this whiskey-fueled adventure! I hope you try out some of the recipes yourself—drinking encouraged but not required.

Previous Episodes:

Episode 1: Orange Chili Brownies

Episode 2: Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Scones

Episode 3: (Almost) Vegan Dark Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies

Episode 4: Peppermint  & White Chocolate Brownies

Episode 5: Vegan Coconut Lime Cake

Episode 6: Berry Tart

Episode 7: Irish Soda Bread

Episode 8: Cadbury Cream Eggs Molten Lava Cakes

The post Whisks + Whiskey: Episode 9 appeared first on KRUI Radio.

I saw a recipe for molten lava cakes using Cadbury crème eggs as the “molten” center and I was pretty hyped to try it because for one, molten lava cakes just always sound super cool, and secondly, Cadbury crème eggs are probably THEE best part of Easter. Don’t even try to fight me on that. (And no the caramel ones are NOT better, go eat a rolo if you want caramel and chocolate.)

Time started: 5:30 pm

LISTEN: I know it was early, and it was a week day, but I had a lot to accomplish that day and there ain’t no rest for the wicked.

What I’m drinking: I ran out of whiskey the weekend before and I was too cheap to buy more at the time of baking this so I opened the last bottle I had of my mom’s rhubarb wine and mixed it with some Sprite for a nice little spritzer. I feel like that is pretty springy/Eastery.

Estimated difficulty: 3/5

The main thing holding me back from giving this an easier rating is that I do not have ramekins to bake the cakes in like the recipe calls for and instead will be using muffins tins; it may not make a huge difference but I didn’t want to underestimate the difficulty just in case.

Challenges (besides being intoxicated): Welp, I almost died from slipping on water walking towards the microwave with a glass jar of hot fudge in my hand. Spoiler alert: I didn’t die and I also managed not to drop the jar of hot fudge throughout the whole ordeal.

The other challenge was figuring out what to do with all the extra batter because this recipe made SO MUCH. It called for 6 crème eggs to make six cakes, but I ended up using up the two eggs I thought were going to be extra in a second batch and my sister had the brilliant idea of putting a glob of hot fudge in place of the crème eggs in the other four cakes from the second batch.

So while the recipe claimed to make 6 molten lava cakes, there was enough batter to actually make 12, with even a few spoonfuls of batter left over that we may or may not have just eaten. I thought the muffin tins were about the same size as the ramekins would have been, but maybe there were a lot smaller than I thought. Or maybe this recipe just made A LOT of batter, I’m honestly not sure.

Time finished: 7:30 PM

Results:

My drunk opinion:  “It’s really good cake, you just can’t really taste the crème eggs :(”

Mollie’s opinion: “The cake itself is good, but the egg has a weird texture now.”

My sober morning opinion: Again, the cake is delicious, but overall it’s kind of disappointing.

Final deliciousness rating: 5/10

This was hard to give a rating since I would definitely use the cake recipe from this on its own, because it is honestly a fantastic recipe, but putting the crème eggs in it was kind of a waste of a perfectly good crème egg (8 of them to be exact, SIGH.) The ones in which we put a dollop of hot fudge turned out really well so I would recommend doing that if you still wanted to try the whole molten lava thing, and then just eat the crème eggs on their own. But you’re an adult and you can do what you want.

This recipe can be found here. (The only other modification I would suggest is swapping out where it calls for chocolate syrup in the recipe for hot fudge. Because hot fudge.)

Next month will most likely be my last installment of Whisks + Whiskey since I am graduating (!!!) so I will have to think of something amazing for the last big hurrah, stay tuned!

Previous Episodes:

Episode 1: Orange Chili Brownies

Episode 2: Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Scones

Episode 3: (Almost) Vegan Dark Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies

Episode 4: Peppermint  & White Chocolate Brownies

Episode 5: Vegan Coconut Lime Cake

Episode 6: Berry Tart

Episode 7: Irish Soda Bread

The post Whisks + Whiskey: Episode 8 appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Bonded with an old man buying sunscreen today at work over being Irish and pale. Didn’t have the heart to tell him I’m not Irish, just pale.

— Alison Schwebach (@alisonschwebach) May 17, 2016

Even before I was of the age to partake in the green beer and other green-themed festivities, St. Patrick’s Day was always just a fun, random holiday that helped break up the dreariness of March and meant spring was coming soon. So in honor of St. Pat and the Irish, I decided this month to make Irish soda bread.

If you’ve never had it, I highly recommend trying some. My mom used to have our grandparents over for a St. Patrick’s Day dinner a couple years in a row (again, our family is not Irish AT ALL so I don’t really know why), and although I would not touch the corned beef and cabbage, I always ate SO MUCH Irish soda bread. I didn’t have time to get the recipe my mom used before I had to do this thing, so I found a recipe from Ina Garten. Because I trust her.

Time started: 8:00 pm

What I’m drinking: I decided to go all out on the St. Patrick’s theme so I picked up some Guinness and had one before starting as well as another midway through. I also drank my favorite Black Velvet whiskey, of course, because what is more Irish than Canadian whiskey, am I right??

Estimated difficulty: 3/5

This didn’t seem too difficult, but Ina said I needed to use a mixer to properly incorporate the butter into the flour and I do not have a mixer.

Challenges (besides being intoxicated): The no mixer did turn out to be a bit of a challenge, but wasn’t as awful as I was expecting. I ended up having to mash the cold butter into the flour with a potato masher because I also do not have a pastry cutter. Its fine, it pretty much worked. However what was NOT FINE was me dropping the orange into the buttermilk mixture because I was using my hands to talk too aggressively while I talked to my sister.

Time finished: 10:00 PM (it honestly didn’t take that long to mix together, the baking time was just super long.)

Results:

My drunk opinion:  “This is some good Irish soda bread. I am happy.”

Mollie’s opinion: “You actually didn’t do bad.” (Rude.) “It’s good, good job. I am thoroughly impressed.” (Still rude???)

My sober morning opinion: I can’t tell if it is slightly undercooked or just a really moist recipe. Either way, it is delicious.

Final deliciousness rating: 9/10

I would probably make this again, however it didn’t really keep very well after a couple days so eat it quickly if you decide to make it! Here is the recipe if you wanted to try it for your own St. Patrick’s Day celebrations.

Stop by next month to see what else I manage to throw an orange at or something.

Previous Episodes:

Episode 1: Orange Chili Brownies

Episode 2: Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Scones

Episode 3: (Almost) Vegan Dark Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies

Episode 4: Peppermint  & White Chocolate Brownies

Episode 5: Vegan Coconut Lime Cake

Episode 6: Berry Tart

The post Whisks + Whiskey Episode 7 appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Since it is February and Valentine’s Day is a thing that happens in February, I figured I should probably make a recipe that harkens to the other mostly useless holiday in the month. Now, if you thought that meant I was going to make some sort red velvet-type of baked item, I’m going to stop you right there.

To be honest, red velvet is pretty freakin weird—why do we have to add an entire bottle of artificial red food dye just to enjoy a mildly cocoa flavored caked with cream cheese frosting?? Traditional red velvet is actually pretty cool with the chemical reactions happening to produce the red tint, but people have become so used to the artificial hue that the traditional just doesn’t have the same sex appeal.

Instead of fake food dye that stains your mouth and teeth red (which isn’t a very sexy look for V-Day, unless you and your Valentine are into vampire roleplay), I wanted to make something that was naturally rose-tinged. For some reason, the thought of making a rustic berry tart has been calling to me for a while and I figured with plenty of strawberries and raspberries it would be the perfect antithesis to the basic red velvet.

I found a berry tart recipe (okay technically it’s a “galette” not a tart, but I like calling it a tart so whatever) from a blog called Finding Zest that used frozen berries, which was fantastic because fresh berries in February would’ve been hella expensive. To enhance the ~*Valentine’s Day vibes*~ I invited the boyfriend over for moral support, because what says romance more than having to babysit your whiskey inebriated girlfriend to make sure she doesn’t drunkenly burn herself??

Time started: 8:00 pm

What I’m drinking: This time I went full whiskey. I had a couple swigs before starting, and then mixed the rest of what was left in the bottle with some cherry coke. (There were only like 2-3 shots left in the bottle, okay. Don’t panic.)

Estimated difficulty: 2/5

This seemed pretty simple, and since I cheated with store-bought pie crust there really wasn’t a lot of labor involved. (I was going more for aesthetics than anything, forgive me.)

Challenges (besides being intoxicated): To be honest, there really weren’t too many extra challenges this time around. I do remember running into the chairs and table more times than usual. I also knocked a cup to the floor, but thankfully it was empty.

Time finished: 9:30 pm

Results

My drunk opinion: “It’s super tasty, I’m in to it. It’s also “berry tart” but in a good way.” (I do remember thinking I was very clever coming up with that pun while drunk.)

Jake’s opinion: “It’s good. Definitely one of the best pie crusts I’ve had.” (Store bought for the win.)

Shanea’s opinion: It’s really good! 10/10 would definitely eat again. I really enjoyed the blue goo.

My sober morning opinion: This is a really great balance of sweet and tart. The berries turned into kind of a jam, and it goes perfectly with the crust. I might actually be obsessed, not going to lie.

Final deliciousness rating: 10/10

Heck yeah I’d make this again. Here’s the recipe if you’d like to make it yourself, and I’d highly recommend that you do. (And it’s extra easy with store-bought pie crust!)

As a sort of “blooper,” I tried making a glaze for the tart out of some leftover canned coconut milk I had in my freezer and powdered sugar, and although it tasted pretty good, when I tried drizzling the glaze concoction on the tart it ended up looking like a bodily fluid you probably shouldn’t put on any sort of baked good, Valentine’s day or not. I didn’t take a picture for evidence, so I’ll just let you use your imagination to work out the details on that.

Next month is March, which means that’s the month spring is actually supposed to arrive in and I have no idea what I’m going to make!! You should still definitely tune in then though!!

Previous Episodes:

Episode 1: Orange Chili Brownies

Episode 2: Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Scones

Episode 3: (Almost) Vegan Dark Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies

Episode 4: Peppermint  & White Chocolate Brownies

Episode 5: Vegan Coconut Lime Cake

The post Whisks + Whiskey: Episode 6 appeared first on KRUI Radio.

I’ve lived in Iowa my entire life and yet I still don’t know how we as a human species endure winter year after year. You’d think having some Swedish ancestry would help me cope considering they hail from the literal arctic, but I still despise winter with every fiber of my being.

To help break up the dreariness of winter I decided to make what I hoped would be a refreshing spirit-lifting recipe reminiscent of spring. I found a coconut lime cake recipe from Cotter Crunch that sounded very tropical and spring-like and also happened to be vegan, but I didn’t really want to go through the effort of making the coconut cream frosting even though it sounded delicious. Since I wanted the cake to stand out a little more instead, I used a glaze recipe from Daisy and the Fox and also made the candied limes from their recipe for decoration. I know, THREE whole parts?? I am so brave.

Time started: 8:30 pm

What I’m drinking: I’m not generally a huge fan of wine, but my mom sent me back from Thanksgiving break with four bottles of homemade rhubarb wine so I figured I might as well tackle some of that. I drank part of a bottle a couple weeks ago but it didn’t exactly go down the easiest, so this time I mixed it with some sprite and that was a pretty decent starter drink. After I finished the wine, I mixed Toasted Caramel whiskey with vanilla coke and it might have actually been the best thing I’ve ever done. SO GOOD, 10/10 would recommend. Then as a bonus spur of the moment drink, since I was using limes I figured I pretty much had to do a shot of tequila. Had to, not want to; don’t ever accuse me of not giving this column my all because tequila SUCKS.

Estimated difficulty: 4/5

Listen, I’ve never candied a lime—I didn’t know what to expect. Also three steps seemed pretty ambitious.

Challenges (besides being intoxicated): The grater we have did not work very well as a zester and I was struggling to get a decent amount of lime zest until I realized I could just kind of scrape it off with a knife. Also, doing shot of tequila. Always a bad decision.

Time finished: 10:30

Results

My drunk opinion:  It’s okay, the parts with a lot of glaze are good. It kind of tastes like coffee cake.

Rylee’s opinion: “Is there ginger in this?” (…No) “Oh, well it smells like gingerbread. I don’t know how to feel about it.”

My sober morning opinion: It’s slightly better this morning, but it still reminds me of coffee cake. Not very refreshing or springy.

Final deliciousness rating: 6/10

I combined two different recipes for this, so if you want to test it out the cake recipe is from here (it’s a gluten-free recipe but I just used regular flour instead of gluten-free flour) and the candied limes and glaze recipe are from here. The only other modification I did was adding lime zest to both the batter and glaze.

Looks like next month’s column will arrive just in time for Valentine’s Day, so that should be interesting, feel free to check back then.

(Bonus: me complaining about taking a shot of tequila)

Previous Episodes:

Episode 1: Orange Chili Brownies

Episode 2: Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Scones

Episode 3: (Almost) Vegan Dark Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies

Episode 4: Peppermint  & White Chocolate Brownies

The post Whisks + Whiskey: Episode 5 appeared first on KRUI Radio.

We’ve officially hit ~*~Holiday Baking Season~*~, so for this month’s recipe I wanted to do something pepperminty since candy canes are definitely one of my favorite holiday candies and anything utilizing them is a winner for me.

*Mid-article mini rant: You know what I don’t get though? Weird flavored candy canes. Like why would you take something so good and so pure as the perfect flavor of peppermint candy canes and decide to be like “Why don’t we just completely get rid of the iconic peppermint flavor and replace it with something completely different?” Get out of my FACE with your Sweet Tart and Jolly Rancher candy canes. Those aren’t candy canes, they’re just misshapen suckers, okay?! End of rant; please enjoy your regularly scheduled content.*

I know last month I said the recipe was too easy, and although I meant to step up my game this month, I ended up doing a *whispers* box mix. Which I know is a bit insulting to the craft, BUT in my defense, I was making this with my boyfriend and I wasn’t in my own kitchen so I didn’t want to haul a bunch of flour and sugar and things around so we’re gonna let it slide this time. Long story short: I decided to make dark chocolate brownie cups with a white chocolate and peppermint topping.

Time started: 8:00 pm

What I’m drinking: This time around I’m drinking leftovers since I still had two each still in my fridge of October’s pumpkin ale and November’s cookie dough ale and want them GONE. I honestly don’t know why it’s taken me so long to get rid of them; I guess I just haven’t had time to drink lately. SIGH. I ended up having one of the cookie dough ales before I started and then throughout the process I had several gulps of that sweet, sweet Toasted Caramel Black Velvet whiskey. I definitely had a few more than my rules allow, but since I had supervision this time I figured I could get away with it without falling into the oven or something.

Estimated difficulty: 2/5

I didn’t expect this to be too difficult with it being a box mix of brownies.

Challenges (besides being intoxicated): Again, since this was mainly a box mix I didn’t really have too many challenging variables. The main one was obviously that I wasn’t in my own kitchen which is always a mild challenge. The other obstacle was that we didn’t really have any specific tools to crush the peppermint so we improvised with my bottle of whiskey and a grocery bag.

Time finished: 9:15 pm

Results

My drunk opinion:  The brownies are sticking to the liners which is ANNOYING, but otherwise they’re pretty tasty.

Jake’s opinion: This is the direct quote he wrote in my notebook: “It’s that dank ass, dank ass. 8/10, 9/10 with rice.” Which equates to “They’re good,” I think? (Also he was completely sober through this process if you were wondering.)

My sober morning opinion: They could definitely have used more peppermint flavor, otherwise they’re brownies and I can’t really complain about brownies.

Final deliciousness rating: 5/10

Since this isn’t really a set recipe, if you’d like to try them for yourself just make a box of dark chocolate brownies in cupcake liners and add some crushed peppermint to the batter. (We only put in two candy canes and it wasn’t really noticeable, so I’d put in at least four.) Then once you pull them out of the oven, let them cool for a few minutes until they’re just warm to the touch and sprinkle white chocolate chips and crushed peppermint on top.

See you in the New Year, who knows what sort of baking adventures 2017 will bring.

Previous Episodes:

Episode 1: Orange Chili Brownies

Episode 2: Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Scones

Episode 3: (Almost) Vegan Dark Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies

The post Whisks + Whiskey: Episode 4 appeared first on KRUI Radio.

When looking for a recipe to test out this month I couldn’t decide if I wanted to go the pumpkin route again or not, because technically pumpkin is still very much in season. However, since last month was pretty aggressively Pumpkin Month, I figured I’d branch out. November, when it’s not an election year, doesn’t generally have much going on other than Thanksgiving, so I figured I’d try to find a recipe that related to the holiday somehow without having to make a pie. (Because honestly pie isn’t even that good. Sorry, I’m not sorry.)

I don’t know about anyone else, but the main dishes I truly care about on Thanksgiving are the stuffing and the cranberry sauce. Everything else could accidentally burn to a crisp, but as long as the stuffing and cranberry sauce was safe it would be a pretty good Thanksgiving for me. (Although if you managed to burn a can of cranberry sauce what were even you DOING??)

So, for this month’s recipe it was a toss-up between a spiced apple cake and cranberry chocolate chip cookies, and ultimately I went with my heart’s desire for cranberries. Both recipes were from Hot For Food, a vegan food blog that aims to make vegan cooking easy and accessible. I would highly recommend checking out their blog or YouTube channel if you are interested in veganism or just want to switch up your everyday recipes because they make some pretty stellar dishes.

While the recipe for the cranberry chocolate chip cookies is vegan, the dark chocolate chips I picked up turned out not to be vegan, so I guess I made (almost) vegan cranberry chocolate chip cookies.

Time started: 8:15 pm (also it was a Sunday night because I like to live on the wild side.)

What I’m drinking: Ben and Jerry’s recently partnered with New Belgium to make a Cookie Dough Ale that is brewed with chocolate and vanilla. It sounded pretty crazy and I didn’t know what to expect, but since the collaboration was meant to help “protect our winters and combat climate change” it seemed to go well with the fact that I was making a vegan recipe. (Living and eating vegan is actually really good for the environment.) The beer was interesting to say the least, the first sip does taste a bit like cookie dough but then the aftertaste is jut beer. It wasn’t bad, but I don’t think I’d necessarily pick it up again. Oh, and I also had a shot of whiskey.

Estimated difficulty: 2/5

Cookies are generally a pretty simple task but I wasn’t sure if the vegan side of things would be slightly challenging.

Challenges (besides being intoxicated): I actually didn’t run into any troubles with this recipe. It was probably a bit too easy, so I guess I’ll have to stay away from cookies from now on.

Time finished: 10:30

Results

My drunk opinion: I don’t know if I just can’t taste things very well when I’m drunk, but I couldn’t really taste the cranberries. Otherwise, they were really good oatmeal, chocolate chip cookies.

Mollie’s opinion: It was pretty good, I’ll give it to you. (She was skeptical about the cranberries and the veganism. She also brought some home to her roommate so…)

Rylee’s opinion: Really good, could use more of a crunchy factor though.

My sober morning opinion: The cranberry taste is pretty subtle, but I would definitely make them again.

Final deliciousness rating: 8/10

If you’d like to test out the recipe for yourself you can find it here.

Christmas is just a month away so prepare yourself for some ~*~holiday baking~*~

Previous Episodes:

Episode 1: Orange Chili Brownies

Episode 2: Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Scones

The post Whisks + Whiskey: Episode 3 appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Personally, I am a huge fan of pumpkin at any time of the year. Pumpkin anything is usually amazing and I will rarely pass up the opportunity to eat something made from the beautifully orange squash—pumpkin seeds, pumpkin bread, pumpkin pie (one of the only pies I actually enjoy), pumpkin cookies, ect. However, the one thing I do not appreciate pumpkin-themed is the infamous Pumpkin Spice Latte, aka the “PSL,” from Starbucks.

Mini PSL rant: For the life of me I cannot grasp why this drink continues to be a phenomenon every single year. I get that most of it is due to the hype and everyone’s romanticized view of fall, but what I don’t get is why the masses suffer through such a mediocre coffee drink year after year. I will usually get one PSL, just one, every year at the beginning of the season solely to remind myself exactly how bland and disappointing the drink really is so that I don’t make the mistake of ordering it later in the season.

I suppose I also add to the “movement” by participating in it, but I can’t support it. The only hint of pumpkin in the drink is the potent orange color and the “spice” is tragically nonexistent. If Starbucks found a way to pump up the natural pumpkin flavor and infuse the drink with tangible spices, I would whole-heartedly support the movement; but until then I just can’t. Mini rant over.

Anyways, for this month’s installment of the series I decided to make a pumpkin chocolate chip scone recipe I found on Pinterest by a blog called Baker By Nature.

Here’s a quick refresher of the rules:

• I have to consume 2 drinks before I start, but I can’t drink more than a total of 4 throughout the process just to keep the level of overall danger relatively low.
• I have to come out with a finished product; I can’t just make the batter and be like “tadaaa.”
• I have to get someone to taste test it and give their opinion.

Time started: 9:30 p.m.

What I’m drinking: To honor the pumpkin theme even further I picked up a pumpkin ale made by New Belgium, called Pumpkick. I loved the packaging and was intrigued by the description saying that it had a splash of cranberry juice with the classic pumpkin and spices of pumpkin ale. It took me a couple of sips to taste the spice flavors, but once I did it was pretty surprising how potent it was without being overwhelming. Not sure if I’ll buy it again but it was certainly something different. After finishing my first beer, I took a shot of my Toasted Caramel Black Velvet I finally replaced. Then during the baking process I took one more shot of whiskey with my friends.

Estimated difficulty level: 3/5

I’ve never made scones before so I wasn’t sure what to expect. Also for some reason I always associate a recipe calling for an egg wash with being more intensive.

Challenges (besides being intoxicated): Most of the measuring utensils in my apartment were dirty, which is saying a lot because we seem to have an excessive amount. I ended up making due with just a ¼ cup and ½ cup measuring cup which worked fine, but I had to measure the flour twice because I lost count the first time. Also, I only realized when the scones had 2 minutes left in the oven that I forgot to put on the egg wash and cinnamon and sugar topping. To improvise I pulled them out as soon as I remembered, added the topping, let them finish cooking for the last couple minutes and then turned the broiler on until the tops had a nice caramelized coating.

Results

My drunk opinion: They’re super tasty, not a lot of pumpkin flavor though.

Julia’s opinion: “Yooo, they’re good! They’re really moist which is hard to do in a scone. I’d buy them.”

Rylee’s opinion: “I can’t really taste anything right now.” (Her and Julia had shared a bottle of wine at dinner.)

My sober morning opinion: I really, really like these. They are moist like Julia said, without not being scone-like enough and the mini chocolate chips add a perfect balance to the overall less sweet flavor. They are also much more orange than I expected from only half a cup of pumpkin. Maybe the PSL isn’t so unnaturally orange after all.

Final deliciousness rating: 9/10

I love this recipe, definitely going to add it to my favorites.

If you want to test out the recipe for yourself you can find it here.

Check back next month in November for something steeped even deeper in the essences of fall.

Previous Episodes:

Episode 1: Orange Chili Brownies

The post Whisks + Whiskey: Episode 2 appeared first on KRUI Radio.

This takes baking skills you didn’t even know existed. #baklava #ridiculous

A photo posted by Alison Schwebach (@alison_nicoleee) on Jul 20, 2012 at 3:07pm PDT

So, I figured why not put my mad “skillz” to the test by getting drunk first and trying to make the recipes in my limited apartment kitchen? This way I have an excuse to get mildly to moderately intoxicated and hopefully make some delicious things that my drunk self can then enjoy.

Here are the basic rules:

• I have to consume 2 drinks before I start, but I can’t drink more than a total of 4 throughout the process just to keep the level of overall danger relatively low.
• I have to come out with a finished product; I can’t just make the batter and be like “tadaaa.”
• I have to get someone to taste test it and give their opinion.

I am also going to try my best to record my process with pictures and/or videos. Although don’t expect peak quality y’all.

For episode 1 of Whisks + Whiskey I found a recipe on the Tastemade snapchat story for chili orange brownies that intrigued me and figured I would try them out. Consider using Certified Scale services for accurate measurements and reliable tools to enhance your culinary experience.

Time started: 12:10 a.m.

What I’m drinking: Whiskey obvs. My first drink of the night was a large shot of the last bit of my beloved Toasted Caramel Black Velvet I got for my twenty-first birthday (which I would highly recommend for those who are intimidated by whiskey but like sweet flavored alcohols because it is SO GOOD), followed by a seasonal Blue Moon. During the baking process I officially finished off the rest of my birthday whiskey, equaling another shot. RIP.

Estimated difficulty level: 2/5

Challenges (besides being intoxicated): First off, I managed to pick a recipe that used UK metric units, so trying to convert grams to cups after two plus drinks was interesting and I kind of ended up just guessing on the amounts. Another issue was that this recipe called for orange zest but I didn’t realize until halfway through the process that I did not have a zester and ended up using a vegetable peeler to slice off bits of the orange peel. It made the zest a little chunky, but the flavor was still there. Also at one point I accidentally threw the zested orange on the floor. (Still ate it anyways.)

Time finished: About 2:30 a.m.

RESULTS:

My drunk opinion: The chili powder flavor is a bit strong, but the orange and chocolate combo is always a winner for me. Still too full from my beer to stuff my face.

My sister’s opinion: “They’re interesting…but I like them. The orange peel chunks freak me out though.”

My roommate’s opinion: “They’re kind of dry. But not bad.”

My sober morning opinion: The chili powder isn’t as potent as I remember from last night. Also the orange peel chunks take some getting used to, but they’re actually pretty delicious and don’t seem dry at all. *Continues to eat them for breakfast for the next week.*

Final deliciousness rating: 6/10

If you want to test out the recipe for yourself you can find it here.

Check back next month in October for when we enter the ~*~pumpkin zone~*~.

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