Black Forest Shots

Black Forest Cake always reminds me of my childhood because my mum made the best one ever and my brother used to request it as his birthday cake every single year without fail. However, doing shots doesn't remind me of my childhood at all because I had good parents. So... I guess this recipe is like combining the past with the future. Or something wanky like that. Really though - all you need to know is that these are sooo much easier and faster to make than a Black Forest Cake. Plus, what could be cooler than eating a whole (mostly liquid) cake in one mouthful? There is also something quite fun about shots which you have to chew as you take them. So, with that random group of good points about these shots, you can see that you obviously have to try them. I'm also planning Lamington Shots and Tiramisu Shots to go up at some stage in the same series.

Ingredients (per shot)

1 pitted morello cherry (see note below - for the love of god read the note!)

½ measure vanilla vodka

½ measure cherry brandy

2 tsp of the juice from the jar or can of morello cherries

1 tsp chocolate ganache (see recipe below)

2 tsp coconut milk

Chocolate Ganache (makes quite a big batch so if you are only making a few shots you may want to halve it)

1/3 cup soy milk

100g dark chocolate, broken up into small pieces

To Make

1. To make the ganache, heat the soy milk in a small saucepan until small bubbles start to appear on the outer edge of the milk (don’t let it boil). Remove from the heat and stir in the broken up chocolate. Stir until the chocolate is all melted and the ganache is deliciously glossy (don’t put it back on the heat!). Allow to cool slightly.

2. Put the morello cherry in the bottom of the shot glass.

3. Add the vanilla vodka, cherry brandy and morello cherry juice.

4. Add a generous teaspoon of chocolate ganache to each glass (it will sink into the middle of the booze).

5. Pour the coconut milk over the shot glass over the back of a teaspoon to make it sit at the top of the shot.

6. Consume immediately and make another :)

NOTE: I would highly recommend checking each cherry to make sure that it is in fact pitted before putting it in the shot, as my experience of buying jars of pitted morello cherries is that roughly 1/4 of the cherries in the jar actually still have pits in them. So - if you don't want your cocktail party guests choking on cherry pits I recommend checking by inserting a sharp knife or skewer into the cherry first.

This post is part of the Death By Chocolate Sweet Adventures Blog Hop, click on the list of posts below or on this badge to see all the other entries submitted to the hop:

P.S. I can't even tell you how many times I accidentally typed shit instead of shot when writing up this post - hopefully I noticed them all and changed them......