Rum Tropical Punch & A Wild Giveaway

One of the many treasured vintage cookbooks my mom has sent over the years is San Francisco à la Cart, by the Junior League of San Francisco (New York: Doubleday, 1979).


Chapter II, Beverages, is so fun! My favorite recipe is for Rum Tropical. The original recipe description warns, “Watch out for this! It is deliciously lethal.” I made some minor changes to the recipe and the drink is at least as delicious and lethal, if not more so! It’s so easy and can be made well ahead of a party. I like to garnish each drink with an all-natural maraschino cherry or two because they’re nostalgic and adorable and they taste even better after they’ve soaked in the punch. If you like, you can purchase all-natural maraschino cherries here, but check your local grocery store first. And I've made this for my kids without the booze - I'm pretty sure we called it Pirate Punch. Ahoy!

Rum Tropical Punch

My March giveaway is for this wild leopard print wine purse that showed up in my newsfeed on Facebook a few weeks ago. What a super fun and stylish way to transport a bottle of wine just about anywhere - to your fav BYOW restaurant or a picnic at the beach. It's on my wish list but it can be yours by entering the giveaway!

Source: thewineauxshop.com via Michelle on Pinterest

To enter, leave a comment in the comment section below telling me if you have a punch tradition in your family - wine, champagne or liquor based? - and what the punch means to your family. For example, my grandmother had a "fancy" alcohol-free punch she made for weddings and now I wonder if it was ever spiked on the sly. Had to have been, right? I also love eggnog "punch" around the holidays. Picture a pretty punch bowl with a block of vanilla ice cream bathing in egg nog, a dash of nutmeg and an optional splash of rum, for adults only. Holy heart stopper - small servings for that egg nog!

By commenting you confirm that you are 21 (because it is alcohol related) and, if you win, that you will claim the prize within 72 hours by contacting me at info@sweetandsimple.com. If not, you forfeit the prize and I will select another winner. The contest ends on Saturday, March 3rd and the winner will be announced on Facebook and in the comments section below. Sorry to be firm, but I don't want anyone to be disappointed!

Jenni's Wine Jell-O!
(Photo Courtesy of Jenni Field, Online Pastry Chef)

Wait, wait! There's more!!

Additionally, you can visit my friend, Jenni Field, the one-and-only Online Pastry Chef, on her blog, comment there, and be eligible for another boozy giveaway! Coincidence? Nah. We definitely planned this. Jenni made a fab Wine Jell-O Recipe for the occasion. I know you're going to LOVE it. 


Jenni's also on Facebook and Twitter.


Rum Tropical Punch
10-12 generous servings


In a large pitcher combine and whisk:
4 cups of rum (preferably a lighter rum)
3 cups pineapple juice
1 cup mango juice
1/2 cup lime syrup, cooled (recipe follows)


Lime Syrup:
In a small saucepan combine:
1/2 cup fresh lime juice, strained
1/4 cup extra fine sugar
Bring mixture to a boil, remove from heat and cool thoroughly


Refrigerate the punch for at least 48 hours.
Serve in pre-chilled, small glasses over crushed ice.


Maraschino cherries, petite lime wedges and/or fresh pineapple wedges for garnish (optional, but why not?)

Sweet & Simple Spice Cake

I have a weakness for vintage cookbooks. They’re just fun.  SO fun.  For this blog post, I decided to give a recipe from a vintage cookbook a whirl.  The recipe, for an old-fashioned spice cake, was inspired by Green Mountain Kitchen Recipes (Elizabeth McWhorter, 1948).  I found this spiral bound collection of recipes in a community thrift shop in Vermont last winter. It has sweet illustrations and several wonderful recipes – and it cost a $1.

Some vintage recipes take a matter-of-fact-no-hand-holding approach with the reader. For example, Ms. McWhorter’s instructions for this cake: “Mixed and baked by the conventional method, the cake calls for the following ingredients…” The ingredients are then listed and the baker is expected – expected! – to know in what order to mix the ingredients and how to bake the cake. Yikes! 



Sure, sure, you and I both know to cream the butter and sugar together, add the eggs, add the molasses and then alternate adding the dry and wet ingredients. Of course we do! But a jumble of ingredients with no instructions may as well be a description of my pantry.  So, I’ve made sense of the original recipe, tweaked it here and there [Hello, touch of nutmeg! Hello, orange zest!], and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

Sweet & Simple Spice Cake*

Makes one lovely bundt cake

Preheat oven to 350°

Prepare a 10” bundt or tube pan (butter and lightly flour the pan, shaking off the excess flour). Alternately, you may coat the pan with a no-stick vegetable oil cooking spray (I won’t tell).

Have all ingredients at room temperature.

1 cup (225 g) light brown sugar

1/2 cup (112 g) unsalted butter

5 large eggs

1/2 cup (170 g) molasses

1 cup (250 ml) buttermilk

2 tsp orange zest

2 tsp vanilla

2 1/2 cups (338g) unbleached all-purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1-1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp cloves

1/2 tsp allspice

1/4 tsp nutmeg (freshly grated is best)

1/4 tsp salt

Sift dry ingredients together and set aside.

Combine buttermilk, vanilla and orange zest and set aside.

In the mixing bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle, combine butter and sugar and beat well (the mixture will look like a grainy paste). Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Scrape down bowl twice. With the mixer on low speed, add the molasses in a slow, steady stream.  Scrape down bowl again. Beat until well combined. The mixture will look a little soupy at this point.

Alternate adding the dry ingredients and buttermilk/vanilla/orange zest, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients.

Mix until just combined.

Pour the batter into the prepared bundt pan.

Bake for 40-45 minutes, or until cake bounces back when pressed lightly, and/or a cake tester comes out with a few moist crumbs attached.

Cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then unmold and finish cooling the cake on a wire rack.

To finish the cake, when cool dust lightly with powdered sugar. Serve slices with a dollop of freshly whipped cream. Garnish with an edible flower or a pretty, slim slice of orange or both!

*Note: my Sweet & Simple Spice Cake recipe originally appeared as a guest post for The Fat Expat - a fun blog with interesting peeps and clever writing.