Orange and Black Cupcakes

It has been a big week of Halloween Festivities! It all began with "Gouls Night Out" at a house of a coworker. We got our palms read (very cool) and I made my favourite spooky martini, the Dark Night (see recipe below). The next day, I joined some friends and their families for some pumpkin carving fun. I brought my Orange and Black cupcakes. They have a brownie bottom and are toped with orange flavoured (and coloured) buttercream. Yum! And finally, we dressed up at work on Wednesday for a costume competition between teams. My team got together to make our own fascinator hats and we went as "mad hatters". We didn't win, but I loved our team craftiness!

Dark Night Martinis

- Shake just over 1 oz Black Sambuca

- With just under 1 oz Bailey's Irish Cream

- And 4-6 ice cubes

- Pur into a martini glass and add two maraschino cherries

Pizza Party

Two friends and I got together for a pizza/martini party a few weeks ago. One friend made the crust and all of us brought together our favourite ingredients.

The results:

#1 "The West Coast" was topped with parboiled yams, soft cheese curds, basil and tomato sauce.

#2 Half "Traditional", topped with basil, tomato and mozzarella on tomato sauce and half "Emerald City", topped with pine nuts, basil, grated green apple and dates on pesto sauce. There were caramelized onions somewhere in here too, but I am not sure what pizza they ended up on.

Orange Blossom Martini

.5 oz simple syrup

1 oz lemon vodka

1 oz Cointreau

Juice of one orange + a bit of pulp

Shake with ice and enjoy!

Along with a viewing of "Shakespeare in Love" it was a fun night with the girls :)