Kairu’s bourbon bread pudding

Last weekend, our friends Kairu and Lorraine invited a group of us over to Kairu’s house for a “Boozy Desserts” party. I snapped the photos without correcting the setting on my camera, so the color in the photos turned out terribly. I tried to circumvent the color issue by making all the photos look old and faded with iPhoto. Not sure I was successful in making the food look appealing, but I thought this party was such a fun idea that I posted the photos anyway.

Sarah’s pasta and meat sauce

my husband’s hot wings

About a month ago, our friend Lorraine thought to put together a Boozy Desserts party. Kairu volunteered her apartment. And last week, we gathered there, ready to eat ourselves into a sugar coma. Before the carb-fest began, we started the evening with…more delicious carbs. Sarah made a fantastic rigatoni pasta, with a long-simmered sauce flecked with plenty of ground meat. My husband made his fabulous panko-crusted hot wings. With some wine and food to line the stomach, we hit the dessert table.

Sandra’s peach crumble

Sandra brought a homey peach crumble, which wasn’t too sweet at all. We topped the crumble with ice-creams (I particularly liked the marscapone flavor), whipped cream, and Frank’s nut brittle.

Lisa’s Guinness ice-cream

Lisa’s Guiness ice-cream packed a punch. The flavor of the guinness beer was accented with molasses for a really full-bodied ice-cream.

Rachel’s almond cream tart with wine-poached grapes

I really enjoyed Rachel’s tart–the almond tart crust was perfectly sandy, and the wine-poached grapes still retained a bit of their fresh, sweet, bite. I believe she said the recipe came from Fine Cooking magazine.

Lorraine made a chocolate mousse, and Viv made a lovely rum and coconut egg nog-type drink, though my photos turned out blurry (perhaps the effects of too much booze?) Kairu made a wonderful bourbon bread pudding with hard sauce. The tips of the bread was nicely blistered from the oven, which made such a nice contrast to the soft, eggy bottom.

Thanks, Kairu and Lorraine, for hosting such a fun party!

Do you have a favorite boozy dessert?