Tipsy Chocolate Cherry Sheet Cake

Welcome to (almost) December, which is also known as the time of year that I dump a bunch of liquor in a box of cake mix and call it a recipe.

On the menu today is Tipsy Chocolate Cherry Sheet Cake.  I think cherries and chocolate are quite possibly one of my favorite food combinations, and any time you throw a bunch of liquor at anything, I'm going to be a fan.  One of the top visited recipes on my blog is for these chocolate covered brandy cherries, and these chocolate covered cherry cookies aren't too far behind, so I guess I'm not the only person who things chocolate and cherries and alcohol play nicely together.

I've been making variations of this cake forever but this is the first time I made it in sheet cake form,  and I'll have to say I'm a fan.  It was ever so much easier to disguise the fact that my oven doesn't heat evenly so one side of my cakes is always two inches higher than the other.

[Printable Recipe]

WHAT YOU NEED:
1 chocolate cake mix of your choice
1 10 oz. jar of maraschino cherries
1 can of cream cheese frosting
1 can of chocolate frosting of your choice
eggs and oil to the cake mix directions
1/4 teaspoon cherry extract
1 cup (approximate) cherry flavored liquor.  I have used cherry brandy, but I was out this time so I used UV Cherry Vodka, and it was yummy.  Yummy.  Yummy.


WHAT YOU DO:
At least two to three hours before you plan to bake your cake, drain the juice from the cherries and reserve it in a separate container.  Then fill the container (with the cherries still inside) back up with cherry flavored liquor.  I usually do this the day before I'm baking the cake, if I remember to.

Prepare the cake batter according to package directions, EXCEPT replace any water needed with a combo of the reserved cherry juice and the cherry liquor your drain from the cherries, up to the amount of water the directions call for.

Bake in a 9x11 or 9x13 sheet pan according to the directions on the mix.

Allow the cake to cool completely.

Add 1/4 teaspoon of cherry extract to the chocolate frosting and stir well.  Frost the cake.  Use the cream cheese frosting to frost around the edges.  When I make a layer cake, I use the cream cheese between the layers.  Top with the liquor soaked, drained cherries.

Eat up!

Tipsy Dessert that you won't hate yourself for tomorrow.

Ok, I'll admit it.

I'm a bit of a lush.

So much so, in fact, that a while back, a few of my Facebook friends were in the early stages of planning an intervention because so many of my status updates mentioned alcohol.

Clearly, these people have no sense of humor.

But while I'm not ready to be carted off to rehab to dry out a la Lindsay Lohan, I do like me some liquor.

And I see absolutely no reason not to put it in everything.

Including dessert.

If you are one of the two people who reads my blog regularly, you also know that the size of my a$$ has become a bit of a concern, so this is my attempt to create a dessert that a) tastes like liquor b)tastes good and c) doesn't make my a$$ any bigger.  I hesitate to call it a recipe, because I didn't really cook anything.  It's more like a METHOD.  Wow, I'm fancy.

[Printable Recipe]

WHAT YOU NEED:
1 oz. Pinnacle Whipped Cream Vodka.  Yes, it's as good as it sounds.
1/2 cup fresh berries of your choice.  I like strawberries and blueberries, so I used strawberries and blueberries
1 serving of angel food cake.  Buy it, bake it, steal it, whatever.  If you are on an un-diet and you like cake, angel food cake should become a staple at your house.
2 tablespoons of Cool Whip
1/2 teaspoon white sugar

WHAT YOU DO:
Rinse, drain and chop your berries to your preferred size, then MACERATE them in the sugar and vodka.  MACERATE is a really fancy way of saying that you pour some stuff over the top of your berries and let them sit and soak for a while.  I learned that word on the Rachel Ray show, and until now, I haven't had an opportunity to use it in a sentence.  Let your berries MACERATE for at least a couple hours.  Gah, I get fancier all the time.

After your berries are MACERATED, tear/cut your serving of angel food cake up into bite sized pieces and put it in a bowl.  Pour your MACERATED berries, juice and all, over the cake, and top with the Cool Whip.

Your delightful dessert has approximately 300 calories per serving.

You may express your gratitude in the form of cash donations.

Gettin' Tipsy.

I love to cook.

Baking, not so much.  There's all this measuring, and waiting, and measuring... Patient?  Not me.  Or at least that was the old me, the me of I-work-a-retail-job-and-it's-Christmas-and-dear-God-do-you-expect-me-to-feed-people-and-CELEBRATE-too?  But slowly, I'm becoming a whole new me...

A few years ago, I came up with the concept of Tipsy Cakes, which is basically a cake mix with a bunch of alcohol poured into the batter, and they were a huge hit with everyone I served them to.

Yes, I know I just ended a sentence with a preposition.

So anyway, when RJ asked me to make some cookies and candy for his co-workers this week, instead of heading to the ready to bake refrigerator section, I thought I might try to find some recipes that contained alcohol because everybody who works with RJ is a raving drunk because they had all enjoyed the Tipsy Cakes so much.  Also, I had seen this recipe for Fruitcake Cookies at the Pioneer Woman's blog, and I was itching for an excuse to try them.

Sadly, the Fruitcake cookies were a total and dismal flop.

Even sadlier, there were few other liquor-laced cookie and candy recipes to be found.

It's like people thing cookies and candy are for CHILDREN or something...

At this point, I did what I do best, and began to improvise.

I could make Tipsy Cookies, and Tipsy Candy, and Tipsy spaghetti, and Tipsy eggs, and...

The posts that will follow over the next few days will highlight the best of what I came up with.

Cheers!

Triple Chocolate Threat - A Tipsy Cake.

I know, I know.  I need to work on my food photography skills.  This photo was taken with my iPhone literally seconds before the cake went out the door to RJ's work.  Because I forgot to do it before.  Oops.  Maybe I need to work on my memory, too.

Ok, so there's cake, then there's CAKE.

This cake has three kinds of chocolate, two kinds of liquor, and does not require much measuring.

That's CAKE, baby.


WHAT YOU NEED:
1 box white cake mix
1 cup Creme de cacao
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup mini dark chocolate chips
3 egg whites
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 small box vanilla pudding mix

1/3 cup Godiva White Chocolate Liqueur
6 baker's white chocolate squares

1 can prepared milk chocolate frosting

WHAT YOU DO:
Preheat your oven to 425 degrees and grease two round 8 inch cake pans.  Or really, use what you have.   I'm not going to come and check.

Mix the first seven ingredients with a mixer until it's not lumpy.  You're probably looking at about 2-3 minutes of mixing, which is just enough time to taste test both the liqueurs.  Twice.

Pour half of the batter into one pan, and half into the other.  Put it in the oven and bake it for approximately 40 minutes, or until it's done.  It's cake.  You know when it's done, right?

After the cake cools, melt the white chocolate squares in the microwave, stirring frequently.  When the chocolate is completely melted, SLOWLY whisk in the white chocolate liqueur.  If you pour it all in at once, like I did the first time, it will be a big clumpy mess that you will be forced to eat with a spoon, so as not to, you know, be wasteful.

Spread the white chocolate goodness on the bottom layer of cake, and top it with the other layer.

Frost it with the milk chocolate frosting straight from the can.

Send it off with your husband to work, after which you will hear tales of it's delightfulness, but will never, ever, ever get to try it for yourself.

Because it's rude to eat a big piece out of your cake before you send it somewhere.

Rum Cake - A Tipsy Cake.

Ok, here's the thing.

I don't really like cake.

But anything that will make me drunk is certainly acceptable.  

So, most of my cakes are made with some sort of liquor in them.  Just because I can.

This is a really easy rum cake recipe that I stole from someone else and modified till it fit me and called it my own.

WHAT YOU NEED:

Yellow Cake Mix

Rum - I like the dark, but whatever you do, do not buy the 151 stuff.  Your house will blaze for days. Vanilla Jello pudding - the small box

Eggs

Oil - vegetable or canola

Water

Sugar

Butter

Walnuts or pecans - chopped (about a cup)

WHAT YOU DO:

Taste the rum to ensure flavor.

Preheat your over to 325ish.  350 if you're feeling crazy.

Put the cake mix, the pudding mix and four eggs in a mixing bowl (yes, I said 4 eggs).    Add 1/2 cup oil, and some combination of the liquids (rum and water) that equal a cup and a half.  If you're something of a rum cake wuss, use 1/2 cup of rum and 1 cup of water.  if you're an old drunk like me, 1 and 1/2 cups of rum and no water will work, too.

Taste test the rum for quality.

Mix it at low speed for about a minute or two.  If you're too lazy to wash your mixer, you can also beat it by hand for a few minutes.  A couple lumps aren't going to kill anyone.  

Taste the rum again.  You don't want that stuff to go bad on ya.

Next, spray a bundt pan with that scary non-stick stuff that I am convinced causes cancer in laboratory rats.  I use it anyway.  Go crazy with it.

Pour your chopped nuts all around the bottom of the pan like this:

Taste the rum again.  It would be unfair if an inferior rum made it's way into your cake, wouldn't it?

Pour the batter slowly on top of the nuts.

Bake for about an hour.  But you might want to check it after 45 minutes.  If it's getting black and/or smoking, go ahead and take it out.  I'm empowering you to do that.

While your cake is out and cooling, melt a stick of butter in a small saucepan.  Actually, I don't really care how big it is.  Use what you have, people.

Melt the butter, then add a cup and a half of sugar.  Toss in a couple generous splashed of water (maybe a quarter cup or so) and boil the whole mess for a few minutes.

Then, turn the heat down, stand back, and add a cup of rum.  Watch out, this shit will flame up if your heat is too high.  Boil it for another minute or two.

Check the rum flavor by taking another shot.  Quality is key.

Invert your cake pan and get the cake out. 

Use a wooden skewer to poke holes all over it - top, bottom and sides.  Poke the hell out of it.

Next, pour half of the rum glaze into the bottom of the bundt pan.  Put the cake right back in on top of the glaze, and pour the rest of the glaze over the top (which is really the bottom) of the cake.

Drink the rest of the rum.  Screw it.  There's not enough left for another cake, anyway.

Wait about an hour before removing your cake from the pan again.  This will give it time to soak up all that rummy, sugary goodness.  

Eat up.

Lemondrop Cake - A Tipsy Cake.

I love to cook, but baking things from scratch is really beyond me.  I. DON'T. MEASURE.  It's a big ole waste of time.  So I have come up with my own way of baking.  It's something like Rachel Ray meets the Cake Mix Doctor meets Otis from the Andy Griffith show.  And it makes some darn fine cakes, if I do say so myself.

[Printable Recipe]

WHAT YOU NEED:

A lemon cake mix

A can of lemon icing

2 boxes of lemon Jello instant pudding 

some eggs (probably three, but if you just served scrambled eggs for breakfast, and forgot to buy more, two will do)

some vegetable oil (1/4 to 1/3 of a cup)

your preferred lemon flavored liquor (here I used Lemon Drop, a premixed thing, but I have also used lemon vodka and yummy Lemoncello.  Lemoncello is kind of expensive, but totally worth it.)

WHAT YOU DO:

Put the cake mix, one box of the jello, the eggs, the oil and roughly a cup and a half of the liquor in your red Kitchenaid stand mixer.  What?  You don't have a red Kitchenaid stand mixer?  So sorry, no cake for you.

Oh, ok, you can use any mixer you want.

Mix all that mess up according to the directions on the back of the cake mix box.

Meanwhile...

Spray your red springform cake pans with that spray stuff that comes out of the can smelling like melting ozone meets carcinogenic in a can.  You know what I mean.

What?  You don't have red springform cake pans?

You need a new husband.  All this red baking stuff has been gifted to me by RJ.

Anyway, put half of the batter into one pan (red or not) and half into the other.

Bake it according to the directions on the box.

After the cake is done and cooling, mix the other box of lemon jello with some more of your liquor (1/3 to 1/2 a cup, for those of you with no creativity).  It will look something like this:

Put one layer of the cake flat, scoop all this delightful stuff on top, and put the remaining cake layer on top of that.  

Frost it with the stuff out of the can.

Yum.

This is the most requested cake from RJ's co-workers. 

Of course, they are a bunch of alcoholics, and this cake may get you a bit tipsy.