Root Beer Floats

December has been a wild month. I can't believe 2012 is nearly over. The last quarter of the year is insanely busy in the bakery world. I went from a non-stop production of pies to making endless trays of cinnamon buns & gingerbread. It's now slowed down for a few days. There are still a fair amount of sweets to make for New Year's celebrations, but nothing like the last few weeks. After a long string of twelve to thirteen hour days, having yesterday off was a much needed relief. I wanted sweets, but nothing that required me to whisk or bake or measure. I settled on root beer float shooters! I decided to make them the wee-est bit fancier by dipping the juice glasses in white chocolate and coating the rims in nonpareils. I bought Luna & Larry's Vanilla Island coconut ice cream because it is my favorite vanilla flavor available in the store and I didn't feel like churning my own batch. This might have been a slight mistake, because the coconut flavor is a little too prominent. It doesn't really pair well with the root beer, so I highly recommend using a soy or almond ice cream with a more neutral flavor. I used a small cookie scoop and added 2 portions of ice cream before slowly pouring in the root beer. If you have never made a float before, then you should be forewarned that there is a lot of foam when the soda and the ice cream meet. I let the soda hit the nonpareils because I like the way the colors slowly diffuse into the frothy top of the glass.


I went into work early this morning to bake bread and fill the bagel bins and even managed to bake a few batches of cupcakes before the snow set in too hard. I am quite happy to be back home and warm before the sun sets. I have the next two days off! I am not sure what things I will try to accomplish, but there is a strong possibility that I will watch Love Actually for the fifth time this week. I cut all the pieces for mini gingerbread houses several days ago, so maybe I will finally find time to assemble & decorate them! I finally caved and joined Pinterest, so it is also likely that I will be browsing that for a few hours. I need to find some inspiration for my 'to bake' list. It's getting a little low for the first time in many months. What's on your to-do list? Have you joined Pinterest yet? It's so addictive!