Two things are synonymous with Christmas. You guessed it: chocolate and alcohol. Combine them together and you have pretty much every chocoholics dream. These boozy chocolate recipes aren’t just for Christmas though. Truffles and trifles yes, but also mojito macarons, pina colada cakes and so much more. Get into the spirit and choose your must make alcoholic chocolate recipe.
As some of you may have gathered CT and I both had flu this festive period. Luckily, by Christmas day we were able to get out for a bit of a stretch on the coast and a clamber down and back up the cliffs to a rather beautiful but awkward to get to beach. There we joined friends for a while, which given that most of my family were basking in Australia, seemed like a fun thing to do.
The Chocolate And Alcohol Challenge
Update September 2023
Back at the beginning of December 2012, I set a challenge for bloggers to come up with some boozy chocolate recipes. This they did and we had some truly excellent results. Over the years, many of the bloggers are no longer blogging and I’ve had to delete the majority of the original entries.
However, there are enough left to still make this collection of recipes containing both chocolate and alcohol very much worth while. I’ve combined it with a previous collection of cocktail inspired chocolate recipes and I’ve also added a few more recent recipes.
So for the boozy chocolate recipes collection, this is the We Should Cocoa challenge I set:
“Finally, tis the season to be jolly – or did I mean merry? In time honoured tradition, I’m going to give you something that’s not only festive for December, but also easy. This is not the time to put my bad cop hat on – goodwill and all that. I’m giving you a good excuse to indulge in your favourite tipple, yes that’s right … alcohol. And I’m not going to be specific here, I’ll leave that for a future date.
You can choose whatever alcoholic beverage you like: a drop of rum or brandy, some scented mulled wine or cider or how about a slug of that sloe gin I know you’re all so fond of. So it’s over to you, festive or otherwise – as long as it contains chocolate and the alcohol is a main flavouring ingredient. I’m not sure I’d be willing to accept a teaspoon of vanilla extract though.”
Christmas Inspired Boozy Chocolate Recipes
So here’s what you’ve all been waiting for. These boozy chocolate recipes include classics such as a chocolate log, but there’s lots of more unusual ideas too.
Chocolate Log
Unusually for me, I managed to get an early entry in with this, my first successfully rolled chocolate log filled with a whipped boozy chocolate ganache made with Thorntons chocolate liqueur.
Malakoff Trifle
Phil from As Strong as Soup has gone all 70s retro and come up with this rather splendid revival of the forgotten malakoff trifle. Phil’s take on it is a slightly healthier version of what was a very full on cream and rum concoction.
Chocolate Mincemeat Sticky Buns
I’ve always hankered after buns for breakfast, freshly baked and warm from the oven. One day I might manage it and when I do, these chocolate and mincemeat sticky buns from Dom of Belleau Kitchen are likely to be a strong contender. Packed with brandy mincemeat and lots of dark chocolate these are just perfect for Christmas.
Chocolate Mint Mousse
With stunning photos of assorted vintage teacups filled with chocolate mint mousse, Karen of Lavender and Lovage gives us a visual feast. Made with cream, crème de menthe and After Eights, these sound perfect for rounding off a festive meal.
Tiramisu Cake
Now for a special birthday cake – a tiramisu cake from Life Can Be Simple to celebrate her sister’s birthday. Kahlua is the booze used in this coffee lover’s delight and plenty of mascarpone to go with it too.
Mulled Wine Cupcakes
Now I do like a glass or two of mulled wine at Christmas. Whatever the quantity I make, there always seems to be some left over. What better way to use it than in these mulled wine cupcakes from Janine of Cake of the Week?
Truffled Prunes
I was hoping we’d get some chocolates for Christmas and I wasn’t disappointed. These wondrous truffled prunes from Alexandra of The Lass in the Apron would have been the highlight of my stocking if I’d found any in there. Chocolate ganache made with Grand Marnier is stuffed inside a succulent prune which is then covered in chocolate – definitely something to dream about.
Chocolate Mince Tarts
Now, I have made chocolate mincemeat and I have made chocolate pastry, but I haven’t yet combined both to make chocolate mince pies. Johanna of Green Gourmet Giraffe has inspired me. Her chocolate mince tarts look pretty and sound delicious, especially as the mincemeat is made with whiskey – something else I haven’t tried.
Vodka Chilli Truffle Fudge
Can Christmas be complete without some creamy homemade fudge? Elizabeth from her Kitchen Diary has come to the rescue and given us this decadent no cook vodka chilli truffle fudge. Vodka was Elizabeth’s alcohol of choice and the chillies are an inspiration that has me longing to try some.
Chocolate Coconut Rum Cake
This chocolate coconut rum cake made with Malibu from the Nutty Tart sounds really rich and delicious. Simple to make, but with lots of dark chocolate and coconut rum, this is another recipe I absolutely must try.
Black Forest Trifle
Want to make a trifle from scratch? Everything from the sponges to the custard is homemade in this black forest trifle from Tin and Thyme. I had to use kirsh of course.
Irish Cream Chocolate Truffles
More boozy truffles come our way via Ros of The More Than Occasional Baker. Great to have around at Christmas, these Irish cream chocolate truffles make a fabulous gift too. Ros has, of course, made these with Irish Cream.
Chocolate Port Sauce
Hannah of Corner Cottage Bakery reckons her chocolate port sauce was made for pouring warm over Christmas desserts. Having seen this rich chocolate, port and cream confection in a jar, I reckon it’s good to go all by itself. As for the Icelandic chocolate she used in making it – well, go look for yourselves.
Christmas Tiffin
Tiffin is one of my favourite chocolatey treats ever, so I was really pleased to see this Christmas tiffin from Siobhan of Tasty Recipes and Other Stuff. The addition of honey sounds particularly appealing as does that of brandy and it’s a gift I would very much have appreciated.
Baileys Chocolate Luxe Cheesecake
Baileys Chocolat Luxe is used to very good effect in this Baileys Chocolate Luxe cheesecake over at Caroline Makes. Light and creamy with lashings of mascarpone cheese, this is yet another dessert I’d have been happy to see on my Christmas table.
Christmas Profiteroles
These Christmas profiteroles from Natalie of HungryHinny got her through to the finals of the Plymouth Chamber Christmas Bake Off, which she very cleverly won – hooray. Filled with a chocolate orange and brandy cream, no wonder the judges were intoxicated by her artistry.
Amaretto Truffle Cake
Suelle of Mainly Baking starts her post off in fine style by declaring that there is always a chocolate dessert on her Christmas table. She finishes it off well by presenting us with this scrummilicious Amaretto truffle cake using, you guessed it Amaretto along with amaretti biscuits.
Kumquat Cheesecake
At the last minute comes a beautifully coloured festive Kumquat Cheesecake from Galina of Chez Maxima. Using port and white chocolate as well as cranberries and a whole host of other delectable ingredients, I’m rather wishing I could tuck into this dish along with all the others.
Rum And Raisin Ice-Cream
Ice-cream for Christmas may not sound the obvious choice over here in the Northern Hemisphere, but in New Zealand it’s perfect. It’s what CT and I had on Christmas Day the year we were in New Zealand. Ours wasn’t half as delicious as Lucy’s sounds. Check out this rich rum and raisin ice-cream over at The KitchenMaid but take care, you might get hooked. Rum is of course the booze of choice for this dessert.
Cocktail Inspired Boozy Chocolate Recipes
Anyone fancy a cocktail? Well we can’t give you cocktails, but we can give you something almost as good. When We Should Cocoa turned two, we challenged our food bloggers to come up with a cocktail inspired chocolate recipe. In this section of boozy chocolate recipes, you’ll find a few of them.
Even though I set the chocolate cocktail challenge, I was at a bit of a loss. My inspiration was pretty much used up creating chocadoodledoo and rhubarbarella earlier in the summer.
I know very little about cocktails really; Sloe Comfortable Screw is the only one I remember from the odd one that passed my lips back in my glory days as a student. Not because of what was in it, but because of the rather shocking name.
This challenge made me feel like a student all over again; it’s was a journey of discovery and I now want to try all these cocktails and liqueurs I’ve never heard of before.
Chocolate Champagne Floats
We are all very lucky to see this stunner from Lisa of Parsley Sage & Sweet. Whilst putting the finishing touches to her chocolate champagne floats, the glass broke and she had to take the shots with the contents pouring out. Chocolate ice-cream, raspberry sorbet topped up with champagne has now been added to my “100 things to do before I die” list.
Mojito Macarons
Mistress of macarons and cocktail inspired bakes, Mel of Sharky Oven Gloves, came up with these spectacular green swirled mojito macarons. Because I’m just a little bit jealous of her skill and flair, I can’t help letting on that in her enthusiasm she forgot to add the lime to the mint and rum.
Chocolate Mint Rum Cocktail Cupcakes
Having had all sorts of grand, if somewhat vague, plans for this event, I ended up running out of time. Whilst everyone was giving themselves a headache wondering what on earth to do for this month’s challenge, I was on holiday. Yes, CT and I finally managed to go away for a whole week. We had a glorious time on the Scilly Isles and although we didn’t actually manage to find any cocktails, we did, in absentia, raise a glass to you all.
I wanted to use some mint schnapps I’d made so I came up with these chocolate mint rum cocktail cupcakes. This is, apparently, a real cocktail mix, but I couldn’t find a fancy name for it.
Mojito Cocktail Cupcakes
For complete dedication to the cause, Caroline from Cake, Crumbs and Cooking is unlikely to be beaten. She’s been studying for exams all month so has had little time for baking. With only a few hours to go before the deadline she decided she wanted to be part of the We Should Cocoa birthday celebrations – she was one of the founding participants after all.
So after six hours of exams and a one and a half hour commute home, these magnificent mojito cocktail cupcakes were envisioned, created, photographed and eaten. I hope these lime drizzle cupcakes with a mint and white chocolate icing helped alleviate some of the pain of a very stressful month.
Painkiller Cupcakes
Painkiller cupcakes, don’t sound that much fun to me, but Ros of The More Than Occasional Baker thought these were just the thing to get the party started with a swing. When I found out they contained rum and pineapple and orange curd and coconut and white chocolate and then saw how luscious they looked, I was of course won right over and couldn’t care less what they were called.
Pamplemousse Financiers
Now, who other than Phil from As Strong As Soup, has a bottle of creme de pamplemousse sitting at home? I didn’t know there was such a thing, but it sounds right up my street. Based on one of his favourite tipples, Grapefruit Kir, Phil has created these inspirational pamplemousse financiers complete with caramelised grapefruit.
Autumn Dream
Moufle anyone? Suelle of Mainly Baking has created a brand new type of layered dessert designed to resemble a cocktail in appearance. This version, Autumn Dream, contains pear, hazelnut cake, chocolate mouse and Chantilly cream. It’s also flavoured with Amaretto and Tia Maria – dreamy indeed.
Black Forest Manhattan
Maria from a Box of Stolen Socks decided she wanted the real deal and rather than making a cocktail inspired creation, she would make a cake inspired cocktail. Black Forest Gateau was transformed into a Black Forest Manhattan. Single malt whisky, cherry liqueur and chocolate of course combined to pack, what I imagine to be, a very powerful punch.
French Martini Macarons
It must be the sophistication of cocktails that has inspired so much elegance in this round-up. Hannah of Corner Cottage Bakery has brought along some more, with these French martini macarons. French martini is Hannah’s favourite cocktail and guess what? I had to google this one too. It’s a mix of vodka, raspberry liqueur, pineapple juice and lemon.
In honour of WSC’s 2nd birthday, Hannah has produced perfect chocolate macarons filled with a chambord chocolate ganache (which she chose in recognition of its presence in the first ever WSC challenge) and topped with dried pineapple.
Cosmopolitan Truffles
My education into the world of cocktails took another leap with these Cosmopolitan truffles. Natalie of HungryHinny explains that the Cosmopolitan is a mix of vodka, orange liqueur, cranberry juice and a twist of lime. Her truffles echo these ingredients in a white chocolate ganache which is itself covered in white chocolate – pure indulgence.
Pina Colada Cake
Managing to wean herself off cocktails and onto beer as a student, Johanna of Green Gourmet Giraffe nevertheless consumed a goodly number. Pina colada was one of her favourites. Wanting to share the cake with her young daughter, she came up with this alcohol free pina colada cake. Johanna also used the cake as an opportunity to try out a new green icing pen to good effect.
Keep in Touch
Thank you for visiting Tin and Thyme. If you make any of these boozy chocolate recipes, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below. Do you have any recommendations or advice for making chocolate recipes with alcohol?
For more delicious and nutritious recipes follow me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or Pinterest. And don’t forget to SUBSCRIBE to my weekly newsletter. Or why not join the conversation in our Healthy Vegetarian Whole Food Recipes Facebook Group?
If you’d like more Christmas recipes, follow the link and you’ll find I have quite a lot of them. All delicious and nutritious, of course.
For more We Should Cocoa chocolate recipes suitable for Christmas, take a look at these chocolate and orange recipes, these chocolate and cinnamon recipes, these chocolate and date recipes and these festive chocolate recipes.
Choclette x
Karen S Booth says
GOODNESS! Time flies when chocolate is involved obviously! GREAT challenge, and I DO love WSC – it was my first ever blog challenge! Karen
Kate@WhatKateBaked says
Has a whole year gone by? I remember really well baking for the 1st anniversary of this wonderfully chocolatey challenge! Thank you for all your hard work in creating such a much loved blogging event and enjoy your hols!
CakeFairyBlog says
Happy Birthday! time does fly, I can remember the last birthday. I’m liking this challenge! Have a lovely holiday
Kath says
Have a lovely holiday. I am very jealous of the location. Happy birthday WSC. x
Caroline says
Hope you have a lovely holiday! This one is certainly a challenge – I never, ever drink cocktails and know nothing about them… Thanks for the mention though, I remember thinking what I could do for the first one… seems ages ago now.
Mel (Sharky Oven Gloves) says
Happy birthday to WSC!! And what a brilliant choice of theme to celebrate!! I just happened to make something that will fit in with the challenge perfectly… I might make more than one entry though, baking cocktail-inspired things seems to be a bit of a speciality of mine.
Shaheen says
Oh wow doesn’t time fly!? Happy birthday to WSC and all its participants! And congratulations to you and Chele for coming up with the idea and being fab hosts. I am intrugued by the choc cocktail theme, but don’t know If I will get to participate. I will be sure back to check out the submissions though. Enjoy your holidays.
Susan Lindquist says
Oh! What fun! Two years of chocolate bliss! And the beat goes on … keep it up, Choclette!
The Kitchenmaid says
Awww, happy birthday to we should cocoa! It was the first blogging challenge I really got my teeth into and I still think it’s brilliant (though I blame it for my clothes being somewhat tighter than they were two years ago. The hazards of blogging, eh?)
So congratulations to you and Chele and thanks for letting me babysit. I’ll do it again, any time. Love the idea of a choc cocktail. I had a boyfriend once who made amazing choc martinis… But that’s another story. Enjoy your hols and hope the spambots get the message xx
Jayne says
I’m so impressed at how creative people are! Happy 2nd birthday!
Johanna GGG says
what a great roundup – I have only skimmed it and need to come back and reread and browse all these recipes – such an interesting them once I got away from the actual alcohol which hasn’t been in my cooking much lately
Gloria says
My mouth watering oh dear what nice and delicious round up!! I come back to bookmarked some recipes delicious!!!
Janice says
Some really creative chocolate creations this month.
Phil in the Kitchen says
Excellent celebration. I feel I’ve got to start drinking more cocktails. I’m a bit shocked to hear that not everyone has a bottle of creme de pamplemousse in their cocktail cabinets.
Cakefairyblog says
What a great round up! Some really creative ideas! Happy 2ns birthday!
hungryhinny says
Another great round up, I especially love all the pina colada themed entries as pina colada cake has been on my to-bake list for quite a while…
This month’s challenge is now up on my blog, hope everyone likes it!
Hazel - Chicken in a Cherry Sauce says
What a wonderful collection of sweets! Those cosmo truffles sound and look beautiful. I admit that the painkiller cupcakes do sound like cake with some paracetmol baked in them but they are actually named after the painkiller cocktail from the Soggy Dollar Bar on the British Virgin Islands – a drink so good that it takes the pain away, I expect! I should have added some chocolate to mine so that I could enter!
Juliet says
Darnit! I could have made a Beeramisu as well! I was in such a rush of “make a cocktail” actually cooking or baking something didn’t occur to me. I just mixed and tossed it down (and mighty delicious it was too).
belleau kitchen says
Oh my lord I think you’ve just invented a new drinking game!! We all meet at your home and eat/drink our way through these amazing creations. Wish I’d made the time to take part but never mind and here’s to October! Happy 2nd Anniversary to my favourite bloggers challenge!!!
laura@howtocookgoodfood says
Oh I do think this is a suitably celebratory round of entries for WSC this month. I think you should celebrate WSC anniversary by spending this month drinking at least one or two of the cocktails these creations stem from. I will obviously join you when it is Campari’s turn!! xx
Jacqueline says
Wow, I feel a bit tipsy just looking at it! What an amazing roundup. This challenge is going from strength to strength 🙂