This Easter Dessert Takes the Cake

March 28, 2021 / theblindpig11 / 1 Comment

Easter is next weekend and in anticipation that our Blind Pig readers may be looking for a way to spice up their Easter meal, we decided to share our twist on a delicious classic carrot cake.

Since rum pairs nicely with the rich spicy flavor of carrot cake, we added some rum to this cake recipe along with a yummy rum enhanced brown sugar cream cheese frosting. As a bonus, this recipe is easy to make, as far as making cakes from scratch goes. We based our recipe on a recipe found in the March 2015 Southern Living Magazine. We hope you enjoy!

This yummy rum-enhanced cake starts with toasting some pecans with butter and kosher salt. A few of the pecans will go into the cake and the rest of the pecans will be used to garnish the top of the cake. The saltiness of the pecans brings out the rich frosting flavors.

Start this recipe much like most cake recipes by creaming the softened butter with the sugars. Next add canola oil and the eggs. Once that is mixed well, you will add in the dry ingredients alternating with buttermilk. Add 1/2 ounce of your favorite dark rum. Then fold in shredded carrots and a shredded granny smith apple with the toasted pecans. Place the cake batter into three round cake pans and bake for about 25 minutes.

Once the cakes have cooled, mix together the cream cheese frosting. Instead of vanilla extract, add 1/2 ounce of your favorite dark rum. After frosting ingredients have been mixed, cover your cake with the frosting making sure to place frosting between the cake layers. Sprinkle reserved toasted pecans on top of the cake, and you are ready to serve.

Due to the cream cheese frosting, make sure to refrigerate the cake until ready to serve.

Warning: The Easter Bunny might abandon his carrots for this delicious cake! This cake does not disappoint and will be the one thing everyone wants to see in their Easter basket.

If you are looking for some other great ideas for your Easter celebration, check out these past posts.

Easter Morning Cocktails and More

Ideas for Your Easter Brunch Every Bunny will Love

Happy Easter and Happy Spring!

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A Little Tiramisu for You

March 21, 2021 / theblindpig11 / Leave a comment

Tiramisu is one of our favorite desserts that we love to order when we eat at an Italian restaurant. After researching this dessert a bit, we noticed that the word tiramisu in Italian means pick me up. What a perfect name for a dessert that makes almost anyone smile!

Most tiramisu recipes call for using a double boiler and lots of extra steps in the recipe. This was just a little too high maintenance for us, until we found this easy tiramisu recipe. We adapted the recipe and Blind Pigged it up, and now you have our version of tiramisu.

First you will need to secure all of the ingredients. Most ingredients are easy to find although we want to share a few tips for finding the ladyfingers, mascarpone and Caffe’ Borghetti. We could not find ladyfinger cookies at our local Kroger, although on line it said that some Krogers have it. Our advice is check ahead of time before heading out to buy your ladyfingers. We purchased ours at Sprouts, and we noticed that specialty stores like World Market had some. If you purchase the ladyfingers from your regular grocery store, you may look near the bakery or in a specialty food section of the store.

If you have not purchased mascarpone cheese before, it will be near your specialty cheeses. We found ours in the cheese section near the deli at Kroger. It comes in a small cylindrical container similar to cream cheese.

We have shared many recipes with Caffe’ Borghetti Espresso Liqueur before. (We can’t help ourselves it works so well with some many things!) Look or ask for Caffe’ Borghetti in your favorite store where you purchase other liquor. There is a specific reason why you want Caffe’ Borghetti. Caffe’ Borghetti is the only espresso liqueur that is made from espresso coffee first. How we can best explain it is that other coffee liqueurs are liqueurs that have added a coffee flavor to them. Caffe’ Borghetti makes fresh Italian espresso coffee and THEN adds the alcohol to the coffee. There is a big difference in quality and taste. You may want to order your Caffe’ Borghetti from Drizly which is an on-line liquor store.

This recipe is for making small servings of the tiramisu. You will want to find small serving bowls, cocktail glasses, or if you want the dessert to be really petite, shot glasses. We used small 8 ounce cocktail glasses.

To make this easy dessert you will need to first whip the whipping cream. Whip it with an electric mixer until stiff peaks form. Place in refrigerator to chill.

Next pour 1/2 cup of Caffe’ Borghetti into a shallow bowl. Break ladyfingers in half and dip both sides of the ladyfingers in the liqueur. Place ladyfingers in the bottom of cocktail glass.

In a mixer beat together the eggs and sugar for four minutes until pale yellow and fluffy. Add in the mascarpone cheese and mix until well incorporated. Fold in the whipping cream with a spatula. Make sure not to over mix.

Add a layer of the cheese mixture atop the ladyfingers. Add another layer of ladyfingers dipped in the espresso liqueur. Add a final layer of cheese mixture.

Top with sifted cocoa powder and shaved, unsweetened chocolate. Place in a refrigerator to chill for a minimum of an hour prior to serving. Keep chilled until ready to serve.

Note: This recipe is made with raw eggs. Raw eggs may contain foodborne illnesses.

If you are viewing this post via email, visit us at www.theblindpig.blog for a full recipe for Caffe’ Borghetti Tiramisu.

This low fuss recipe is the perfect pairing for an Italian dinner. It also works well as a dessert that can be made a day ahead. Need a pick me up? Try out the Caffe’ Borghetti Tiramisu and let us know what you think!

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Try Your Luck with Irish Whiskey Cupcakes

March 12, 2021 / theblindpig11 / Leave a comment

It’s almost spring and we are ready to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with a fun dessert that will impress your Irish friends and a few others. We got the idea for our Irish Whiskey Cupcakes from a variety of sources. We have been sitting on the idea of making some cupcakes with Irish whiskey for years after we saw a fun Pinterest post from HugsandCookiesXOXO. Then Rhonda found a cute idea in the March 2021 issue of Better Homes and Gardens. Put both ideas together with a little bit of time in the kitchen and you now have our Irish Whiskey Cupcakes!

The recipe to make the cupcakes is very easy. Although we LOVE chocolate cupcakes, this time we resisted and decided to stick with a yellow cupcake flavored with a little bit of Irish whiskey. We added some Irish whiskey to our amazingly fluffy frosting for just the right amount of Irish.

We made our cupcakes according to the recipe directions. After letting the cupcakes cool, we used a teaspoon sized measuring spoon and carved out a hole in the center of each cupcake. We filled the holes with green and white sprinkles. Isn’t that fun?

Next we mixed together our fluffy frosting. Since we did not completely cover our entire cupcake with frosting, we had a lot of frosting left over. You may want to consider cutting this frosting recipe in half. This frosting is so tasty, so we are going to save our extra and use it with another dessert in the near future.

A trick we learned as we were frosting our cupcakes is to seal off the sprinkled filled hole with a shot of frosting before adding the final layer of frosting on the top of the cupcake. It kept the sprinkles from mixing into the frosting and the frosting layer from lifting off the top of the cake.

We thought this was a fun way to celebrate St. Pat’s day and the surprise of the sprinkles inside the cupcake added to the celebration. There is not much whiskey included in this recipe, but if you want to serve the cupcakes to children, you may want to consider replacing the whiskey with 1 1/3 teaspoons of vanilla in the cake recipe and 1 teaspoon of vanilla in the frosting.

If you are viewing this post via email, visit us at www.theblindpig.blog for a complete recipe for Irish Whiskey Cupcakes.

Looking for more St. Patrick’s Day fun recipes? Don’t forget about our past posts: Golden Mint Crinkles and Irish Chocolate Cake with Irish Cream Frosting.

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Espresso Oreo Shake

March 6, 2021 / theblindpig11 / 1 Comment

The Blind Pig household survived snowmaggedon in Texas and now we are looking toward spring break and warmer weather! What better way to celebrate warmer temperatures and sunshine than with a little ice cream pick-me-up?

Rhonda got the idea for this shake one day while she was sitting at her favorite fast food drink stop… Sonic! There was an advertisement for a new espresso shake on the kiosk. Rhonda thought, “I can make an espresso shake for adults that tastes better than that!” At that point a star was born, she came home and mixed up this easy, but satisfying recipe for an adult espresso shake.

To make this shake you need only a few basic ingredients: vanilla ice cream (our choice — Blue Bell), a little bit of milk, some crumbled Oreos, and some Caffe’ Borghetti espresso liqueur.

Place all of these ingredients into your blender. Blend. Garnish with some whipped cream and an Oreo cookie. Delish!

We served ours in small tall serving glasses as a petite dessert. It was just enough to let ourselves indulge a bit without adding on too many calories. You may want to serve yours in a larger glass.