Last week, I stumbled across this old familiar Christmas friend at the Trader Joe's checkout line.
And it reminded me that I'd made a prize-winning cocktail inspired by the chocolate orange just two holiday seasons ago.
That was me enjoying the spoils of my victory. Frankly, I'm sure anyone could have won with this as their inspiration:
Such a beautiful sight! My welcomed re-acquaintance with the chocolate orange inspired me to post the recipe again for those of you new to the blog in the past couple of years. It takes a bit of effort in that you'll need to prepare a cardamom simple syrup and acquire a chocolate orange of your own, but that's not much of a hardship, is it?
Frosty’s Chocolate Orange Martini #
2 shots orange juice
1 shot Stoli Vanil
2/3 shot white crème de cacao
1/3 shot Grand Marnier 1 shot cardamom-infused simple syrup Finely grated Terry’s White Chocolate Orange Granulated sugar Slices of Terry’s Milk Chocolate OrangeDirections: Chill a martini glass. Rim the glass with extra cardamom syrup, then duck it in a mixture of the ground chocolate orange and sugar. Shake up the first 5 ingredients. Pour into the martini glass. Garnish with a slice of chocolate orange on the side.
For the rim, the white chocolate oranges were ultimately chosen because they stuck to the rim a little better than the milk or dark chocolate and because they add festivity by mimicking a snow dusting. But white chocolate isn't my preference, so I think it's worthwhile to grate millk or dark chocolate instead, even if you sacrifice a bit of finesse on the final product. The choice is yours.
Enjoy! And tell me what you think.