Daiquiri is a cocktail whose main ingredients are rum, citrus, typically lime juice and sugar or other sweetener.

Named after a small Cuban village east of Santiago, the Daiquiri cocktail is said to have been invented by a mining engineer from the United States during or shortly after the Spanish-American War of 1898 after running out of gin. History supposedly credits Jennings Cox who was the General Manager for the Spanish American Iron Company with the drink recipe, but there are many doubters.

The Daiquiri’s claim to fame, which attracted international attention, may be the Cuban rum recipes served down at the El Floridita bar in Havana, Cuba. Writer Ernest Hemingway and his famous friends Gary Cooper, Spencer Tracy and Ingrid Bergman were frequent guests known for sipping daiquiris made by Constante Ribailagua who served them up there while bartending from 1912 – 1952.

The strawberries and lime mixed with sugar syrup and sweet rum, make this classic daiquiri cocktail a real crowd pleaser. It is a perfect summer cocktail, a fresh fruit smoothie with a kick that is very hard to resist.

I am a cocktail kind of girl. Maybe the sweetness of the chilled alcoholic beverage is what appeals to me. Wine I find sour, Beer I find bitter and of course Whiskey takes bitterness to another level for me, I’m unashamed to say. I’ve tasted most of the sweet flavoured cocktails and I love most of them.

In my throes of culinary inventiveness, I dreamed up my series of cakes tasting like my favourite cocktails. Developing the recipes, I realised that all the goodness of fresh fruit, dried fruit and herbs was being used to flavour my cakes. So, in fact they are nutritious cakes.  To add the alcohol or not is an option. I’ve kept the base cake recipe the same, adding flavourings and alcohol according to the cocktail I was being inspired by.

My post on the series of cocktail flavoured cakes can be read on Cocktail in a Cake.

Strawberry Daiquiri Cocktail Cake

Ingredients ~

100 gms soft butter
100 gms caster sugar
110 gms flour
¼ tsp baking powder
3 eggs
150 gms strawberries
2 tsp sugar
A squeeze of lime
¼ cup White Rum
3 drops of red food colour

Preparation ~

Cook the strawberries with the sugar on high flame till the strawberries are soft. Mash them and cook them till they look like a thick jam. Add the lemon juice to balance the flavour.

Method ~

1. Beat the butter and caster sugar till pale and double in volume.
2. Add one egg at a time, beating into the batter till well incorporated.
3. Gently stir in the white Rum and the red food colour.
4. Sift the flour and baking powder and fold into the batter.
5. Cool the strawberry jam and swirl it into the batter.
6. Pour the batter into a greased and floured baking tin.
7. Bake at 160*C for 25-30 minutes or till done.
8. Decorate with strawberry jam and fresh strawberry.