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

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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.

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