These St Patricks Day Desserts are a collection of Italian cakes or Italian drinks or cookies that have green as their primary color. (The only two exception are the two desserts made with beer! And I talk about those further down.)
I'm half Italian and my husband is 100% percent Irish. We don't really celebrate St Pats ourselves - but we live in Kansas City - and our city is known for one of the BEST St Patricks Day parades. Our city gets into this HUGE. People take off from work for the parade. We have a huge 5K where everyone dresses up the weekend before. All to say....there are times at the office we need to bring in desserts. And I don't like to bring in something boring predictable or mundane. So I think, what's a great flavor and looks festive?
Although I have listed two Italian drinks listed for your lucky Irish celebration - I can't bring those to the office. And they are dandies. One is lightly green - my Sour Apple Martini Recipe , and the other is my Basil Martini. It's green accented with cucumber and basil. I recommend this is for the more uppity celebrators. This can be modified by adding a drop or two of green food coloring if you want it darker.
As for the Italian cookie recipes that can be used for St Patricks Day desserts - the Mint Brownie Recipe has green food coloring already called for in the recipe. I've been making this for 20+ years! Flippin' awesome! Probably made this over two dozen times. (ok - probably more than that!) And the Pistachio Cookies are my daughter's favorite Christmas cookie (just don't think snow think clovers). They are light green in color. If you look at the picture I took, that "green color" is from the pudding mix. So add some drops of food coloring if you want more green.
Now the non-green cakes. Here's the reason I point out the two Italian cakes that aren't green. They are made with beer. And the Spice Cake Recipe calls for a dark beer. Actually it calls for Guinness. But any dark beer will do. And, I'm telling you the dark beer really makes the cake! So, no light beer in this recipe.
If you gotta use light beer my Beer Cake calls for "normal" beer. By that I mean light beer. I'm not suggesting you add green food color to this - but it would be more of a talking piece. In other words - what makes it a St Patrick's Day Dessert is the fact it's made with beer. It has a unique yeast flavor to it - not quite like it's bread, but it reminds you of bread.
Most of the baking desserts will only take you from prep to clean up if you don't dilly dally.
Anyway - the full list of St Patricks Day Desserts (and drinks) are in my photo gallery on the right.
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#2
Italian Rum Cake Recipe
