A Merry Fabulous Holiday Soirée with Apple Cidercars!

Hello Lovelies and almost Merry Christmas!

During the first two weeks of December, I hosted two holiday events at my place.  While I was too busy with the hustle and bustle for the family Advent Party to take even ONE photo, I did snap a few of the hors d'oeuvres for my Holiday Soirée the following week.  Since my little cocktail party was a week after the Advent Party, I was able to use that as a way to gauge what worked and what didn't in terms of food and drink.  Thankfully, EVERYTHING worked, so I set essentially the same table and had the same results - more specifically that there was not much left by the end...

I seem to be gaining notoriety for my mushroom dishes and my stuffed mushrooms have been a HUGE success each time I've made them.  At both parties, all the mushrooms were demolished and the platter looked like it had been licked clean!  Perhaps I should make a double batch next time around?

Also a huge success?  My goat cheese logs.  I had been throwing the idea of making cheese balls around and then saw a goat cheese log rolled in chopped pistachios and dried cranberries.  I decided not to wrap one log in both as I'd seen on Pinterest, but to deconstruct it a bit and make two separate rolls - one with pistachios and one with cranberries.  They were delicious, easy to make, and looked incredibly festive!

Personally, I feel that no party is complete without some dessert and coffee.  The rumballs and traditional German Christmas cookies, compliments of Oma, were a huge hit at both parties as well!

While I'd like to share the recipes for the mushrooms and the rumballs here, I thought I would first share the incredible cocktail that's been a hit with everyone who's tried it.

The Apple Cidercar from Williams-Sonoma is a sidecar made with apple cider.  And it's delicious!

The original recipe calls for apple cider concentrate, but since that's difficult to find, I made my own by boiling down a bottle of apple cider.

I wasn't paying attention to how long this process took, but I reduced the cider to about 30% of the original amount.

The ingredients:

-5 oz. apple cider concentrate
-5 oz. water
-3 oz. brandy
-5 oz. Cointreau or triple sec
-2 oz. lemon juice

Mix everything together in an ice-filled shaker and serve.  These can be mixed up hours before actually serving.  I forgot to add the water, but since I don't think my homemade concentrate was as potent as actual concentrate would have been and it was sitting on ice for a bit, it was quite tasty!

If your cocktail is too sweet, you can always add more brandy.  And if, like me, you couldn't find the concentrate, you can have quite the good time by experimenting with these ingredients and their measurements!!

If you were looking for something special to make for a party or celebration you might have in the next week or so, I would HIGHLY recommend this one!

Cheers, Lovelies!
XOXO!!