Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Pink Margarita and Breast Cancer Awareness

October is quickly coming to a close and it would be incredibly remiss of me not to acknowledge that October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. I'm the daughter of a two time breast cancer survivor and I even have a pink ribbon tattoo on my right breast, to honor the breast my mother lost the second time around. I shaved my head when she lost her hair to chemo and I donated the hair to Locks of Love. And when the hair finally grew back to close to an inch long, I bleached it and dyed it pink to support my mom even further. With that in mind, I bring to you the Pink Margarita, to honor Breast Cancer Awareness month! Also, a recipe to make some tasty sugar cookies and decorate them with pink ribbons. You can also purchase ribbon shaped cookie cutters and put pink icing on them instead of the instructions about cutting cookies out that come with the recipe if you like. That link is from The Pink Ribbon Shop. They promote breast cancer awareness with everything in that shop as well as using a portion of their sales of the products to fund research and donate to cancer organization. They also carry items from companies that donate additional money to breast cancer awareness and research. So getting anything from them is a plus.

Pink Margarita
Ingredients:
1 1/2 oz reposado tequila
3/4 oz Monin wildberry syrup
3 oz sweet & sour
Garnish: pink salted rim, lime wheel and lime twist in the shape of the breast cancer ribbon

Mix tequila, syrup and sweet & sour in a cocktail shaker. Strain into a salt rimmed margarita glass (or short glass) over ice. Garnish with lime wheel and a twist.
[Source:cocktailtimes.com]

Pink Ribbon Cookie Dough
1 pound (4 sticks) butter or margarine, divided
(do not use vegetable oil spread)
1 (18.25 ounce) box devil's food cake mix
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

Decorator's Icing
3 cups confectioners' sugar
1 tablespoon meringue powder (see Cook's Tip)
5 to 6 tablespoons warm water
Red food coloring

Heat oven to 350 degrees F.

In small bowl, microwave two sticks of the butter on HIGH 1 minute or until melted. Slice remaining butter into 1/2-inch pieces; add to melted butter, tossing to coat. Allow butter to stand 3 to 5 minutes or until softened.

Meanwhile, in large bowl, combine cake mix and flour; blend well using a whisk, breaking up any large lumps.

Whisk butter until smooth and free of lumps. If necessary, microwave butter an additional 10 to 20 seconds or until creamy and pourable. Do not melt completely. Pour butter all at once into dry ingredients, scraping butter from batter bowl. Mix until dry ingredients are incorporated and dough is smooth.
Turn dough out onto well-floured cutting board. With floured hands, gently knead dough, adding up to 1/2 cup flour as needed to form a firm dough. Divide dough into three equal portions. Shape each portion into an 8-inch disk. Generously flour cutting board again. Roll one disk of dough out evenly to 1/8-inch thickness. Cut cookie shapes in rounds or scallops; transfer to a baking stone or cookie sheet, 1 inch apart.

Bake cookies 15 to 17 minutes or until edges are set on cooking stone. If you're using a cookie sheet, check after 12 minutes. Cool 3 minutes; remove to wire cooling racks. Cool completely.

Meanwhile, combine confectioners' sugar and meringue powder in a medium bowl. Add 5 tablespoons water; mix well. Mix in additional water, 1 teaspoon at a time, to form a thick icing that will flow into a smooth pool with a rounded edge.

Place 1/3 cup of the icing into a separate small bowl; tint, one drop at a time, with red food coloring until desired shade of pink is reached.

To decorate cookies, pipe a white icing border around edge of one cookie; fill in with white icing until smooth. Immediately pipe a pink ribbon onto center of cookie. Repeat with remaining cookies. Let stand about 1 to 2 hours or until icing dries completely.

Yield: about 2 1/2 dozen cookies

Cook's Tips: Meringue powder (which contains pasteurized egg whites) is packaged in cans and can be found in stores that carry cake decorating supplies. Icing that has meringue powder in it will become smooth and hard once it has dried.

To pipe icing onto cookies, place a small, resealable plastic food storage bag inside a rocks glass. Pour white icing into corner of bag. Twist top of bag. Cut a very small tip off corner of bag to allow icing to flow through. Repeat with pink icing.

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