Baking With Spirit: The January Challenge

Happy new year!

Are you excited? Are you hung over? Have you already broken your resolutions? Whatever you did last night, and whether or not you regret it, I hope you enjoyed yourself and had a wonderful festive period on the whole.

I know that today is probably not a day that you want to be thinking about alcohol of any kind, but nevertheless I will plough on with my announcement of the beverage for January's Baking With Spirit.

For many, January is quite a depressing month, be it because it is cold, wet, because you have to go back to work or because you couldn't resist the chocolate after all. I think the 'most depressing day of the year' (according to the press, at least) is in the month of January. For me, though, January holds more than a glimmer of joy because I turn 22 this month, meaning presents and celebrations! I may not be able to celebrate it in full on the day because I have exams the following week, but once the exams are over I will not only be able to belatedly celebrate my birthday but also the end of two months of agony and stress at the end of my five exams. We can also all belatedly celebrate the new year together as a blogging community.

Have you guessed what I'm building to yet? What do we celebrate with? Yes - champagne!

Photo Credit

Now I realise we are not all on the budgets of kings and queens, myself included, so bubbly wine and champagne derivatives like Bucks Fizz and Kir Royale will be acceptable ingredients for your baked goods.

Champagne might not be the first beverage that comes to mind when one thinks of baking, but I know that Dom at Belleau Kitchen made a Strawberry Champagne Cake a while back, or check out Bravetart's Champagne Waffles and The Boys Club's Chambord Cherry Cake if you need some inspiration.

If you have some left over champagne from last night this is the perfect way to use it up!

Here's a reminder of the rules:

1. Bake or cook something food-related containing the specified type of alcohol* of the month.
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 me @CakeOfTheWeek and/or use #bakingwithspirit I will endeavour to retweet!
4. The deadline is midnight on the 28th of the month.

Have fun and I look forward to seeing your entry!