New Year’s Day Lillet Sugar Cube Cocktail, Plus S’Mores Chocolate Tartlets for the Kids
I love Lillet. Lillet is one of the great French apéritif wines from Bordeaux that comes in both red and white varieties. This cocktail calls for “blanc,” or the white one.
I always loved the idea of Champagne cocktails on New Year’s Eve, so if you have any leftover Champagne from midnight merriment, use it here. It’s a little bit of Lillet, a sugar cube, and whatever sparkling wine you want to use. Champagne is fine. Cru Secco is also a great alternative. We started serving this at my restaurant Union Pacific on holidays for something different. We wanted to offer people an apéritif they hadn’t heard of, something slightly sweeter than normal. I think people don’t realize it but they prefer sweeter aperitifs and cocktails. Right now, for example, a litchi martini is one of the most popular drinks in New York City. People don’t notice how sweet it is because it has that wonderful tropical flavor of litchi. The Lillet does a similar thing; it aromatizes the cocktail, the bubbles--Champagne, Cru Secco, sparkling wine--in a very unusual way because Lillet has got over two dozen botanicals in it. It’s a very special flavor.
Rocco’s Lillet Sugar Cube Cocktail
From Rocco Gets Real
Ingredients:
3 sugar cubes
Dash Angostura bitters
1 2-by-3/4-inch strip orange peel
1 ounce Lillet Blanc
4-1/2 to 5 ounces chilled Champagne (or Cru Secco, sparkling wine)
Directions:
Drop sugar cubes into a champagne flute; add bitters. Squeeze the orange peel into the glass, then run it over the rim of the glass. Drop peel in glass. Add Lillet, then slowly fill it with Champagne.
Makes 1 serving
S’Mores Chocolate Tartlets for the Kids
This is for adults and kids, but the kids especially love it. When else do you get to use Fluff? Can’t resist it. It is so indulgent and it looks very sophisticated but it’s based straight from a kid’s brain.
Rocco’s S’Mores Chocolate Tartlets
From Rocco Gets Real
Ingredients:
8 Keebler Mini Graham Cracker Pie Crusts, or other tart shells of choice
8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
8 large strawberries, sliced
1-1/2 cups Marshmallow Fluff® marshmallow creme
Salt
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
2. Place tart shells on a baking sheet. Bake until golden brown, about 1-1/2 minutes. Remove from oven and turn oven up to 500 degrees F.
3. Meanwhile, in a microwaveable bowl, melt chocolate in microwave at 50 percent power for about 3 minutes, or until melted, stirring halfway through cooking time. Spoon a little more than a tablespoon of melted chocolate into the bottom of each tart shell. Arrange strawberry slices from one strawberry on the chocolate in each shell. Spoon about 3 tablespoons Fluff inside each shell and spread to cover the entire surface of the shell. Sprinkle a tiny amount of salt on top of the Fluff.
4. Place filled tartlets in oven. Watching carefully, allow the Fluff to get toasty brown, about 3 minutes. Remove from oven. Place 2 tartlets on each plate. Drizzle with remaining melted chocolate and serve immediately.
Makes 4 servings
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