Bad Pete's Bourbon Blues Cakes

My dad broke his thumb in three places this week-end. At this point, it's a bit of a gnarly mess beneath a splint and a load of gauze. He's doing great, but it puts a big 6-8 week wrench in the woodworking projects that he's got going right now. Now, if it were me in this situation, I'd be a right cranky pain-in-the-ass, but my dad is a take-it-as-it-comes kind of guy, so he's being pretty great about it. Still, it's not hard to figure that a broken thumb would make anyone a little blue, so I decided to make him something especially and very specifically with him in mind. 

This is what I had to work with: My dad loves bourbon. My dad loves cake. My dad loves dried fruit - especially raisins.

This is what I came up with: Bourbon soaked raisins in little, one-hand-eatable teacakes (the one-handed part was James's idea). 

These are based on the raspberry pistachio teacake from Tartlette, one of my favorite food blogs. I'd made a strawberry almond variation the day before and it went really well, so I decided to go a little farther afield and use it as a base for my dad's broken-thumb blues cakes. Just a warning, there's *a lot* of bourbon in this version, so you have to really like the stuff to go for it as is. That said, this recipe is really fun to adapt with all sorts of fruits, nuts, liquers, juices and whatevers, so you can have all kinds of fun with it. 

And now, without further ado, Bad Pete's Bourbon Blues Cakes!

Ingredients:

- 1 1/2 cup cake flour

-pinch of salt

-1/2 cup dark brown sugar, packed

-3/4 cup to 1 cup raisins and dried cranberries (depending on your taste)

-1/3 cup bourbon (I used Knob Creek, but any tasty bourbon would do)

-1/2 tsp granulated sugar

-1 tsp baking powder

-1 stick of butter, melted and slightly cooled

-2 eggs

Process:

1. Preheat the oven to 350. Butter or grease a 12 cup muffin pan (or two 6 cup pans).

2. Put the dried fruit in a microwavable bowl with the sugar and bourbon. Loosely plastic wrap the top and microwave for 30 sec. Check to see if it's warm. If it is, stir, tighten the plastic wrap and let it steam itself. Otherwise, heat up until warm, but not hot, going at 10 sec. increments. Then stir, and let it steam. Set aside.

3. Put the salt, cake flour and baking powder in a separate bowl, stir and set aside.

3. In the bowl of a mixer (or in a separate bowl with a handheld), beat the brown sugar and eggs on med. high until thick, about 2-3 min.

4. Turn speed down to med. low and add the butter and 1 tbs. of the bourbon from the raisins. Beat for 30 sec. 

5. With speed still on low, add the flour mixture slowly. Beat until incorporated. The batter will be quite thick. 

6. By hand, fold in the plumped up dried fruit and as much of the bourbon as suits your tastes. You can either leave the bourbon at the 1 tbs. from above, or use the entire 1/3 cup, although the amount will affect the crumb and baking time a bit - the whole 1/3 cup will make denser, more tender cakes that needs slightly less baking. The cakes with less bourbon will be crumbier and more crumbly and need a minute or two more in the oven.

7. Distribute the batter evenly into the cups of the muffin pan. The cups will only be about 2/3 full. Place in the oven (center rack) for 20-25 min, or until gently golden brown.

8. Remove the cakes from the muffin tin and let cool on a rack. Can be eaten warm or at room temp, and are even lovely the next day with coffee or tea.