1 September 2012

A New Blog Challenge: Baking With Spirit

Those of you who follow my blog regularly will know that I've baked my fair share of alcohol-spiked cakes: Vodka Lemonade Cake, an eight layer Kahlua Cake for my sister's 18th, a Chocolate, Rum and Cherry Chesecake and Piña Colada Cupcakes, to name but a few. It got me thinking that the world of blog challenges was lacking in alcohol, and without wanting to fall into the student cliché (hey, I'll be out in 10 months and then I'll be part of the working masses like the rest of you) I thought I would take it upon myself to start something up.

There are plenty of traditional bakes that include alcohol: Zabaglione, Christmas Pudding, Christmas Cake, Tiramisu, Rum and Raisin Ice Cream, Trifle, Black Forest Gateau, and many more. I'm not asking you to make traditional cakes if you don't want to, though - you all know that I can't resist putting my own twist on something, so you are more than welcome to do the same!


Before I lay down the rules, I need to thank a couple of people. First of all, without Debs of Deb's Dust Bunny this challenge would have a much less snappy name (all I could think of was 'Boozy Bakes', which doesn't have quite the same ring to it, does it?), and without Rich Burrow, who I went to primary school with but is now an up and coming product designer, I would not have this striking and stylish logo. I can guarantee that the logo would look about 1/10th as good as this if I had been left to my own devices! So thank you to Deb and Rich, this would have looked a lot shoddier and less classy without you!

Now, onto the rules: I thought we'd go easy since this is the very first month of the challenge, so this month you all need to bake something with rum*. It can be any type of rum: white, coconut, dark, any other type or flavour that might exist (I really need to try mango rum!); you do have to bake with it though. I've laid out the rules below:
  1. Bake or cook something food-related containing rum.
  2. Write a post about it on your blog and link back to my blog, Cake Of The Week, and mention Baking With Spirit.
  3. Email the link to me at cakeoftheweek@hotmail.co.uk and include your name, your blog and the photo you want me to use in the round-up. If you tweet your post to me @CakeOfTheWeek and/or use #bakingwithspirit I will endeavour to retweet
  4. The deadline is midnight on the 28th of the month.
  5. I will post a round up within the following day or two. 
  6. A new challenge will be posted on the 1st of the month.
I'll make a Pinterest board for all the entries too, linking back to their original posts, so if you'd rather I didn't include your entry on it let me know in your email. 

Now, go and bake me something! My entry will follow in the next week.

I have to admit that I'm a little paranoid that nobody will enter this, so please feel to share the challenge with your blogging friends!

* If you don't drink alcohol or would prefer not to bake with it for whatever reason, feel free to use rum flavouring!

13 comments:

  1. Oh. My. Gosh. This is a genius idea! I love the name. I baked something earlier which would be PERFECT for this challenge (which I've only just read about that, so how's that for a lucky coincidence?!) and actually thought to myself "too bad there aren't any alcohol-based challenges out there, I'd probably be the most enthusiastic and regular participant…" Not to fit the student stereotype or anything. Are we allowed to submit entries to other challenges as well?
    Also, mango rum sounds amazing! I'm so intrigued – I've never seen it before.

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    1. Yeah, of course you can enter other challenges - the more, the merrier! There's a bar in Plymouth that sells a load of different types of rum and I've been told one of them is mango flavoured. I've never been but I'm dying to go! Looking forward to your entry, so glad you like the challenge.

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    2. That's great, thanks for answering! That sounds like a rather amazing bar, if I'm ever in Plymouth, I'll have to check it out.

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  2. This is such a cool idea!
    I'll have to think of something fun to participate.

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    1. Thanks! Looking forward to seeing what you come up with.

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  3. You decided to go for it then! Great, I love cooking with booze!

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  4. What a great idea. I will be blogging about my West Indian fruit cake (with lots of rum) and cream cheese topping tomorrow, and will be submitting my entry to this baking challenge :-) x

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  5. Great idea - I'm not a huge drinker (other than the occasional cocktail) but love a drop of booze in a cake!

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  6. Lovely idea Janine - great name and logo too. I'm not much of a drinker either, sadly not even in my student days! But I do like the odd tipple occasionally and especially in cake. I've got so much on this month, I don't know if I will manage this, but I'll try. Should be able to combine it with my WSC if I'm clever!

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    1. Don't worry if you can't manage this month - there's always next time!

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  7. How proud am I to get a mention in your blog! I can't wait to see all the recipes! : )

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Did you try this recipe? Let me know what you think! Comments are always appreciated. Unless they are spam.