September is Bourbon Heritage Month. Bourbon and cherries are a wonderful pairing, as demonstrated by this recipe from Janina O’Leary, executive pastry chef at Trace restaurant in the W Hotel in Austin, Texas.

Cherries and Bourbon features an airy cupcake dipped in tres leches milk and fried. Alternatively, you can bake the cake in a pan and serve it as squares.
The cake is then topped with cherry sorbet and Bourbon ice cream swirl with meringue and cherry pie filling.

If this sounds like a lot of work (it is!), try the simplified version. Don’t fry the cake. Don’t swirl the sorbet and ice cream together, but serve two separate, small scoops. Don’t have time to make the cherry sorbet? Just make the vanilla-Bourbon ice cream. Don’t have time to make the ice cream? Buy a pint of vanilla, soften it, and stir in the Bourbon.

The cupcakes are topped with cherry sorbet and vanilla-bourbon ice cream, with an optional garnish of homemade cherry pie filling.

Cupcake Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C). Grease and flour a 9×9 inch pan or line a muffin pan with paper liners.

2. In a medium bowl, cream together the sugar and butter. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Combine flour and baking powder, add to the creamed mixture, and mix well. Finally, stir in the milk until the batter is smooth. Pour or spoon the batter into the prepared pan.

3. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes in the preheated oven; for cupcakes, bake 20 to 25 minutes. The cake is done when it springs back to the touch.

Ingredients

 
Preparation

Mix all ingredients, strain, and process in an ice cream machine.
 
 
RECIPE #3: MAKE YOUR OWN CHERRY PIE FILLING

You can substitute any fruit for the cherries. Whatever the fruit, this will be far better than most canned products.

Ingredients

1-1/2 cups cherries + 1 cup, fresh or frozen

Preparation

1. COMBINE. Add the ingredients to a medium saucepan; stir to combine.

2. HEAT. Cook over medium-low heat for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Raise heat and bring to a gentle boil; cook until desired consistency.

3. ADD. Stir in the final cup of cherries. Remove from heat and set aside until ready to serve.
 
 
RECIPE #4: VANILLA-BOURBON ICE CREAM RECIPE

Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. COMBINE. Combine the cream, milk, sugar, and salt in a large saucepan and cook, stirring frequently, over medium heat.

2. WHISK. Put the egg yolks in a bowl and whisk lightly.

3. COMBINE. When the cream mixture is starting to steam and tiny bubbles have formed along the edge of the pot, whisk a cup or so, ¼ cup at a time into the yolks, to temper the eggs.

4. WHISK. Once the eggs are tempered, whisk them into the cream mixture. Stirring constantly, cook over low heat or until the cream mixture has thickened enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon.

5. ADD. Turn off the heat and stir in the bourbon and vanilla extract. Process the mixture according to your ice cream maker’s instructions
 
 
ASSEMBLE

1. Place the cupcake in the center of the plate or bowl. Surround with spoonfuls of cherry pie topping.

2. Top the cupcake with cherry sorbet and vanilla ice cream.

3. Garnish with bourbon whipped cream or cherry whipped cream. Chef O’Leary has also garnished with cherry powder and edible flowers.
 
 
MORE RECIPES WITH BOURBON

CHECK OUT WHAT’S HAPPENING ON OUR HOME PAGE, THENIBBLE.COM.

The special-purpose scissors have a nonstick spatula base that “slides and lifts the slice.” You can buy them on Amazon or at Sur La Table.

While the nonstick base prevents scratches on metal pizza pans, at home, we use our everyday kitchen scissors to separate those clingy slices. (Pizza wheels never worked for us.)

An eight-inch kitchen knife like the one from Wustoff can do much more than slice pizza. If your knife skills aren’t as good as a culinary professional’s, you may find that a scissors can be your best friend in the kitchen.

You’ll find many uses for kitchen scissors, including:

 
HOW TO CHOOSE A KITCHEN SCISSORS

Make sure it’s stainless steel. Otherwise, you’ll find that rust spots crop up.

For a come-apart scissors, look for a screw mechanism rather than a metal bolt. A come-apart scissors design makes it easy to separate the two blades for cleaning or sharpening. But we’ve found that scissors secured with a simple bolt closure (turn and lift) may seem easier at first glance, but come apart in your hand when you don’t want them to—when you’re using the scissors!

That’s why we like the screw design of the Wustoff kitchen scissors. While Wustoff is a premier manufacturer of cutlery, the scissors are only $19.95 on Amazon.

Blade. You get what you pay for: The scissors associated with good cutlery manufacturers have blades that hold their sharpness longer.

 
How do you use your kitchen scissors?
  

We highly recommended them. We didn’t foresee then that these nutritious, slightly sweet, crunchy and flavorful biscuits would become our favorite grab-and-go breakfast and snack. (We also enjoy them as a sit-and-relax breakfast and snack.)

So we’ve promoted BelVita to Top Pick Of The Week. Read the full review and see of BelVita, which means beautiful life, can become part of yours.

The line is certified kosher by OU.

Find more of our favorite:

Asians drink soup for breakfast (Japanese miso soup and Thai pho, for example). Americans looking for something quick, hot, nutritious and comforting should consider the option.

All you need to make a bowl of miso soup is hot water and a spoonful of miso paste, available in many supermarkets as well as in Asian food stores.

You can add nutritious vegetables to your miso soup, as shown in the video, or have it plain, as it’s served at Japanese restaurants. The soup can be made in advance and microwaved in a minute, which is especially convenient if you want your soup with veggies.

Beyond a quick cup of soup before you dash out, you can carry a thermos, thermal mug or a portable coffee mug full of soup as you leave. Your soup supply can also be part of a low-calorie, healthful lunch, snack or dinner.

Here are more ways to use the miso paste.

Find more of our favorite soups in our Soup Section.

Want a more conventional breakfast? Check out our Cereals, Pancakes & Waffles Section.

When pulling together hors d’oeuvres for cocktails, it’s easy to reach for baguette slices or crackers and pile on a topping.

But here’s an alternative that doesn’t get soggy, has better nutrition and fewer carbs: the cucumber. You can place sliced meat and cheese, a shrimp with dill sauce, or other favorite directly atop a slice of cucumber instead of the bread or cracker. You can even make bite-size “cucumber sandwiches” using two slices of cucumber and a filling.

Or, you can “stuff” the cucumber for a more impressive presentation:

STUFFED CUCUMBER HORS D’OEUVRES

1. Peel and cut cucumbers into half-inch circles and carefully scoop out a well with a melon baller or other device.

2. Optionally, you can use a small cookie cutter to make scalloped/floral shapes, as in the photo (do this before you scoop out the well).

3. Then, fill the well with anything you like. Some of our favorites:

 
BLUE CHEESE SPREAD RECIPE

The better quality the blue cheese and cream cheese, the better this tastes. We use organic cream cheese (less gumminess, more flavor) and Gorgonzola or Roquefort (check out our favorite blue cheeses).

Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. COMBINE: In a medium bowl, mash softened cream cheese until softened. Mash in blue cheese.

2. TASTE: Blue cheese is typically salty, but adjust with salt and pepper if needed. You can make this up to a week in advance. Allow to come to room temperature before serving.

3. ASSEMBLE. Top cucumber slices with cheese spread. Since this is a thick mixture, you don’t need to create wells; but you can certainly do so if you like the aesthetic.

4. GARNISH: Top with a thin slice of fig and/or a toasted nut.

Find more of our favorite hors d’oeuvre recipes.