Author: John Fladd

I don’t have to tell you that this Saturday, June 22, is National Kissing Day. You’ve been stocking up on breath mints and lip balm for weeks.

There are quite a few kissing-themed cocktails. One popular one is called the Kiss Me. It’s one of those drinks that’s fairly simple in execution but calls for ingredients most of us are unlikely to have on hand. It will almost certainly require a trip to the liquor store. Because of this, you might want to save this recipe for a special occasion, like National Kissing Day.

Surprisingly, the most difficult ingredient to track down for this drink is strawberry schnapps. In the end, it required a work-around to replicate, which, in turn, required changing up the recipe’s traditional ratios. It’s easy enough to make strawberry syrup and mix it with vodka and end up with something very like schnapps.

In spite of using (almost) the same ingredients, this cocktail is different enough from a classic Kiss Me that it deserves a name of its own.

Stolen Kiss

• 1 part rye whiskey
• 1 part “strawberry schnapps” – see below
• 1 part passionfruit cocktail — I like Goya’s; it’s delicious and easily available in the apple juice aisle at your favorite supermarket
• 3 parts prosecco

Making Strawberry “Schnapps”

Combine equal amounts of frozen strawberries and granulated sugar, by weight, in a small saucepan.

Cook over medium heat, until the strawberries give up all their juice — encourage this with a potato masher — and the mixture comes to a boil.

Remove from heat, add the juice of half a lemon, and allow to cool.

Strain using a fine-mesh strainer. Eat the solids that are left behind on an English muffin or a crumpet; you won’t be sorry.

Bottle and save in the refrigerator for several weeks, although you’ll be lucky if it lasts through the weekend.

To make a decent substitute for strawberry schnapps, combine one part strawberry syrup with two parts medium-shelf vodka. I like Tito’s for this.

The Actual Cocktail

Combine the rye, “schnapps” and passionfruit with ice in a cocktail shaker. Shake enthusiastically.

Measure out and gently pour the prosecco into the cocktail shaker and stir gently. If you have an actual cocktail spoon, one with a long twisty handle, it will do a good job at mixing the drink thoroughly without de-fizzing the prosecco. If you don’t have one, a wooden spoon or even a fork will work well enough; just remember that you are mixing this gently, as if it might explode.

Strain the cocktail — again, gently — into a Champagne flute.

Drink — hopefully with company — to a kissing-themed song. There are any number of kissing songs, but my personal recommendation would be for Louis Armstrong’s version of “A Kiss to Build a Dream On.” Given agreeable company, it might make your heart feel as fizzy as the cocktail.

There’s a lot going on with this cocktail. The fact that it’s in a Champagne flute means that the fruity notes won’t hit your nose right away. Something like 70 percent of what we “taste” is actually dependent on what we smell. Because of the shape of the flute, you’ll catch this drink’s fruitiness on the back end, but with your first sip the rye will take a guitar solo. It’s on the second, third, or 17th sip that everything will fall into place. Appropriately enough, it tastes like a flirtation.

Featured Photo: Stolen Kiss. Photo by John Fladd.

There are words floating around in the air that we’ve heard, that we’d love to use in conversation, but whose meaning we don’t know. We feel like we should know. We’ve read them in books or heard fancy people use them. We’re pretty sure that everyone else in the world knows them, but we don’t want to admit our ignorance.

My favorite one of these words is “insouciant.”

Another of them is “frangipane.” Don’t let this intimidate you. It’s just the term for an almond cream that is used in pastry sometimes.

Frangipane-Raspberry Pie

• 1 pre-baked pie shell – you can buy one of these premade and frozen at the supermarket or you can make your own or you can buy premade pie dough and bake it according to the instructions on the box; blind baking (making a pie crust without any filling in it) is a whole angsty topic that requires a much longer discussion than we have time for today; seriously, the premade dough makes a very credible pie crust, don’t feel guilty about using it
• 1 1/3 stick (150 g) butter
• ¾ cup (150 g) granulated sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1½ cup (150 g) almond flour – I like Bob’s Red Mill
• 1 teaspoon almond extract
• ½ cup (170 g) seedless raspberry jam – I don’t like raspberry seeds, but if you’re some sort of thrill-seeker, feel free to use the full-octane stuff

Preheat your oven to 325°F.

If you’ve baked a pie shell yourself, let it cool completely.

Using a stand mixer, beat the butter and sugar until they are fluffy, 3 to 5 minutes. Most Kitchen Smart People will tell you to use softened butter, but a stand mixer will beat cold butter into submission and be happy about it. If you don’t have a stand mixer, you should probably listen to the experts.

Add the egg. Because the yolk contains a lot of fat, it will mix in with the butter-fluff without complaining, and bring protein with it to give structure to frangipane while it bakes. Follow this with the almond flour and extract.

Beat the mixture until it is fluffy again.

Meanwhile, glop spoon the raspberry jam into your pie shell and spread it around so that it covers the entire bottom.

Transfer the almond mixture to the pie shell, on top of the jam. Spread it evenly with an offset spatula if you have one. If you don’t, try the back of a large spoon. You’ll say to yourself, “What’s the big deal? I beat this until it was fluffy. Twice! I can spread it around with a butter knife!” No, you can’t. While fluffy and delicious, frangipane is stubborn; it needs to be persuaded to spread out on top of the jam instead of mixing into it. Use the spatula to spread the filling toward you until it reaches the edge of the pie pan, then rotate the pan and repeat, until you’ve covered the whole pie.

Wish your pie well, then bake it for 45 to 50 minutes. Check on it during the last 10 minutes or so of baking. If it’s starting to look a little dark, cover it with a sheet of aluminum foil.

Remove from the oven and let it cool completely before serving. You might want to garnish it with whipped cream and fresh raspberries.

This is a delicious pie. It tastes primarily of almonds at first — rich, dense, and a little pecan-pie-like, but the crispy part where the frangipane has bonded with the side crust is something special. The sharpness of the raspberries cuts through the richness of the pie but adds to its sweetness.

There are two advantages to this pie. One, of course, is the pie itself. It’s a really good pie. The other is social. When you share this — and you really will want to show it off — and a friend asks what it is, you can flip your hair insouciantly, and say, “Oh, this? It’s just some frangipane. How do you feel about frangipane?” HA! Take that, Gertrude!

Featured Photo: Frangipane. Photo by John Fladd.