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This summery bourbon berry smash cocktail is packed with fruity flavor thanks to the addition of berry jam! Lemon juice helps to balance the flavors and sparkling water gives it some satisfying fizz.

bourbon berry smash | via the sweet miscellany blog

I went through a major creative dip throughout most of last year when it came to recipe development and keeping up the blog. As soon as things start to feel forced, I often back away because I know what I produce will err on the side of inauthentic. I was also pouring a lot of energy into Little Radish so when it came time to do something “fun”, I was already spent.

Enter global pandemic and home quarantine. All of my timelines for Little Radish went out the window. Suddenly I was graced with more freedom in my schedule. And then, as if there was some perfect alchemical combination of circumstances, my brain started firing off recipe and content ideas for the blog.

In the first two months of this year, I posted ONCE. Since March 10th? I’ve posted NINE times. NINE. That seems hard to wrap my head around. I decided that if I was going to really start devoting time to this space again, then I needed to tackle the task that I’ve cleverly and successfully ducked for over 5 years: video content. And in typical Courtney fashion, once I had it in my mind to do it, I didn’t stop until I had a basic understanding of the editing process.

So here we are, the first video content for Sweet Miscellany! It’s a bit rough but I’m pretty proud for a first attempt. I wasn’t originally intending for the first video to be a cocktail, but I had the idea for this simple drink on Friday and decided to go with it. To make it easy, I’ve included the written recipe below but you can also find it in the description of the video.

Bourbon Berry Smash

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Author: Courtney West
Total Time: 5 minutes
Yield: 1 drink 1x
Diet: Vegetarian

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Description

This summery bourbon berry smash cocktail is packed with fruity flavor thanks to the addition of berry jam! Lemon juice helps to balance the flavors and sparkling water gives it some satisfying fizz.

Ingredients

Scale

1 jigger (1.5 oz) bourbon whiskey
2 tbsp berry jam of your choice (I used a homemade strawberry blueberry combo)
2–3 tsp fresh lemon juice
sparkling water to top it off
ice

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Instructions

Add the whiskey, jam, and lemon juice to a highball glass. Mix well with a muddler or a spoon to incorporate the jam. Top off with sparkling water and a handful of ice.

Makes 1 cocktail.

Notes

Typically a smash involves muddling fresh fruit and simple syrup in a glass but I decided to skip straight to jam because I made a batch of blueberry and strawberry jam just before shooting this recipe and it was pretty darn delicious. Feel free to use whatever berry jam you love!
Want a mocktail version? Skip the bourbon and up the jam to 3 tablespoons and the lemon juice to 1-2 tablespoons. Add a dash or two of bitters if you like then top off with the sparkling water!

Prep Time: 5 minutes
Category: drink

Banana Muffins with Cardamom Strawberry Jammy Swirl | via the sweet miscellany blog

A humble vegan and gluten free banana muffin is swirled through with a ruby-red strawberry cardamom jam. It’s the perfect treat for when you have some overripe bananas or just want a comforting baked good!

When Sweet Miscellany was still in operation and I was baking every week for the farmers market, strawberry season marked the first jam-making session of the year. I would buy strawberries at the market by the flat-full (roughly 10lbs of berries), wash and hull them all by hand, then add them to my large copper jam pot along with exactly the right amount of sugar and lemon juice. Next came the lengthy task of watching and stirring until the jam got to precisely the right texture so that it could be ladled into half-pint jars, canned, and eventually sold at market or eaten late at night by the spoonful.

While thinking back to those good ole jam-making days, I began to crave some homemade strawberry jam. And at that precise moment, the smell of a ripening bunch of bananas hit my nose. I thought how delicious it would be to make banana muffins with a ruby red swirl of strawberry jam baked right into the tops. So, I made that thought a tangible baked good and that is what I’m sharing with you here!

To be honest, you can use ANY banana bread recipe that you like here. I’ve included my go-to gluten free/vegan version below just in case. The key to this recipe is the swirl of cardamom strawberry jam so if you want you can skip right to that part. The jam recipe below is a scaled down, less-involved version that makes just enough jam for the tops of the muffins. You can double it if you would like to have some extra to enjoy but please note it is not formulated to be canned/shelf stable. Extra jam will keep up to 2 or more weeks in the fridge 🙂

Banana Muffins with Cardamom Strawberry Jammy Swirl

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Author: Courtney West
Total Time: 60 minutes
Yield: 10–12 muffins 1x
Diet: Vegan

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Description

Ingredients

Units Scale

for the muffins:

90g oat flour
75g arrowroot flour
50g brown rice flour
50g buckwheat flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp fine sea salt
1 tsp nutmeg
350g very ripe bananas, mashed well (this will be 3-4 bananas depending on their size)
90g melted coconut oil or vegan butter
2 tsp vanilla extract
125g maple syrup or honey

for the strawberry cardamom jam

1 1/2 cups diced strawberries
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
2 tbsp maple syrup or sugar

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Instructions

Make the jam first so that it has time to cool before you need to use it. Combine all of the jam ingredients in a sauce pan set over medium heat. Cook the mixture, stirring regularly until the juices begin to thicken and the mixture turns a glossy red. I like to mash up the fruit with my spoon as it cooks to make a smoother textured jam. The jam is ready when you drag a spoon against the bottom of your pan and the gap doesn’t immediately fill back in with jam/liquid. The cooking process will take anywhere from 10-15 minutes. Once your jam is ready, remove it from the heat and let it cool completely before using it in the recipe. This makes just enough jam for the muffin recipe.

Pre-heat your oven to 375 degrees. Line a muffin tin with paper liners or grease them well with cooking spray or a high-heat tolerant oil like avocado. In one bowl, combine the flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and nutmeg. Mix with a whisk to aerate and combine. In a separate bowl, combine the mashed ripe bananas, melted coconut oil, vanilla, and maple syrup. Whisk this mixture until smooth, then add it to the dry ingredients and mix until you have a smooth and thick batter.

Fill each muffin well in your tin about 2/3 full of batter. Once you’ve used all of your batter (it should be enough to make 10-12 muffins), tap the tin on the counter a few times to help settle the batter and release any air bubbles. Add a spoonful of jam onto the top of the batter for each muffin, then use a spoon or toothpick to swirl it into the batter. Bake the muffins for 25-30 minutes or until a tester inserted into the middle comes out nearly clean. Cool the muffins on a rack before enjoying!

Notes

If you want to save some time, feel free to use a store-bought strawberry jam instead.

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 45 minutes
Category: dessert