The Kicking Kiwi Cocktail

Every western Canadian knows of the Cactus Club—which like its competitors, is known for good food, delicious drinks, and incredibly good looking servers. Whether you’re out for dinner or on a hot date or biding time before you can dance the night away, I’m sure we’ve all had a good night that somehow involved the Cactus Club.

Inspired by their popular “Brazilian” cocktail, this is a wonderful blend of kiwi, rum, lime, and a little hint of melon. It’s refreshing on a hot summer night or a wonderful reminder of warmer times on a cold Vancouver or Sydney weekend, and is of course best imbibed with friends.

We recently had our dear friend Ramsay visit us in Sydney, who brought along his friend Billy from Canada. Billy (who definitely fits that category of ‘incredibly good looking’) is a server & bar tender at Cactus Club himself. It was a great visit, topped off by Billy making these cocktails for us! We didn’t quite have all the snazzy equipment and ingredients for an exact replica, but you’re more likely to have these normal ingredients on hand anyway. So thank you Billy, and Ramsay for knowing him. You’re always welcome in our house! <3

On with the show…

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Edited: August 24th, 2010

Kiwi Raspberry Pound Cake

This might be a weird thing to admit, especially for a food writer, but I’m usually not into cake. Good cake is one thing, but it seems to have become standard issue for cakes to be over-iced and topped with all manner of decorations which taste like plastic (something that looks like chocolate just shouldn’t taste like plastic—it breaks my heart every single time!). There are of course exceptions—my cousin’s home-decorated cakes are phenomenal works of art and her butter cream recipe is amazing—but I cringe far too often when I see cakes brought out at events. I could even be described as wary when it comes to baking cake. My family (and Luke’s, fortunately) has a few tried and true recipes which are delicious, and even if they are full fat, at least you don’t also have to eat half a pound of icing sugar that someone’s piled on top—I firmly believe that cake should be good enough to stand on its own merit.

Okay, my griping over… pound cake is just one of those rich and versatile recipes that you can use for every day additions to lunchboxes, or serve up to guests to go with afternoon tea, or even during various holidays. It can be a stand-alone plain cake, or you can get creative and add various fruits or other fillings for a variety of options. I used up some kiwis and some frozen raspberries that were in my fridge in this recipe, but you could also use any number of fresh, frozen, or dried fruits for a unique cake. I’ve written out some variations that you could try at the end of the recipe.

Pound cakes, you’ll be happy know, keep very well covered at room temperature. Or, you can wrap a portion of the cake in heavy foil and freeze for up to a month. They get their name from the ingredients used—traditionally, a pound each of flour, butter, eggs, and sugar. Nothing wrong with any of those ingredients! On with the cake…

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Edited: July 17th, 2010