Black Licorice Bats

I recall several Christmas Holiday TV specials starting with terrible news that Christmas might get canceled due to inclement weather.  It seems like this year may be the Halloween that wasn't.  It's two days away and Hurricane has us all hunkered home and playing snow day.  I'm sure Halloween will be unaffected for us in Boston, so when given lemons make lemon gelee. In this instance, Concord grape, pomegranate, and black licorice bat edible cocktails.

According to the USDA,  1.1 billion pounds of pumpkins are produced commercially in the USA every year.  Now add the yield from home gardens and that's a lot of pumpkin.  I'm not sure of the percent that, as Linus put it,  'get killed' every year to become Jack O'Laterns, but the remaining pumpkins are converted into delicious recipes like ravioli, bread, and pies!

Working with the flavorful orange gourd, I wanted to take the essence of pumpkin pie and change the flavor profile every so slightly.   Here are the Pumpkin, Ginger, Sage and Cream Cheese edible cocktails.  

Autumnal Surprise

This most recent creation is  truly a gelaborative effort. I've had the idea for a jello shot filled cupcake for a while now, and the perfect opportunity came up to make my first batch.

Under the tutelage of Emily Bao, an expert baker here in Boston, I've begun learning to bake. It's a whole other brach of food science, but I'm getting the hang of it.  

In addition, I've just met the two coolest ladies of boutique cocktails and spirit alchemy. Harmony and Meaghan of Booze Epoque made the most delicious autumn drinks at the Harvest Hoe down which inspired me to think fall flavors.  I had several butternut squash in my garden so with that I made a syrup of squash and fig to which I added some rum and bourbon and turned into a gelee. For the cupcake what better pairing than apple spice, topped of course, with a cream cheese frosting.

These are just the first batch- more varieties to come. 

Bring Me Some Peanuts and Gelatin....

Although the Baseball Hall of Fame and the Jello Museum are within a three hour drive in New York State, not many people associate one with the other.  However, this summer I had the privilege of catering some edible cocktails for the Beantown Softball League's National Tournament. 

Here are the embedded and logo gels I did back in July.  The gloves were a chocolate lemon drop martini, and the gel-logos were a margarita with salt gel layer.

Watermelon Jalapeno poppers

For a recent fundraising event for the Harbor to the Bay charity bike ride, I made these Watermelon Jalapeno edible cocktails topped with candied jalapeno peppers. 

The gelatin is made from fresh local watermelons and a simple syrup made from jalapenos, lime juice, watermelon vodka, and watermelon pucker. 

Cherry Gelcia

Here it is the end of August, and it's been a while since my last post. But I think you'll like these new edible cocktails.  These were made for a Vermont party back in July during peak cherry season. 

When I think of Vermont I think of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream.  And what's more summery than ice cream. So here is my interpretation of an Vermont ice cream favorite in edible cocktail form.  The Cherry Gelcia.

Photo by Anthony Eng

Strawberry Basil Gelee with Sour Cream Panna Cotta

June is strawberry season and a time to celebrate. It's the few weeks of the year when you can buy strawberries that taste like... well.... strawberries 

Although you can get strawberries year round, those berries have been bred to withstand shipping and storage.  Most of the berries you see at your local grocery store started their life on Driscoll's Farms in California- the largest producer of the Strawberries in the nation. Americans love their strawberries, having gone from consuming 1.7 pounds per capita in 1970 to 4.4 lbs in 2001. So in order to eat more of them more often we've had to sacrifice taste.

When I read on Farmfresh.org that Smolak farms in North Andover had local strawberries for picking, I leapt for the fields.

I admit about a quarter of the berries never made it into the picking basket.  Each sun-warmed berry burst with flavor and melted in your mouth. There was no way these would make it onto a refrigerated truck. They needed to worked with quickly so I zipped home and turned these berries into a strawberry basil gelee with sour cream panna cotta.

©Gelology - photos by Anthony Eng