A delicious low carb cocktail with sugar-free homemade Kahlua, vanilla vodka and cream. Great as an aperitif but rich enough to be dessert.
Confession time. The pictures of this recipe are faked. Totally faked. Yep, I am a faker, and I know it. And now you know it too. The truth is that I almost always take pictures of the actual food I am making, as it truly looks on the plate or in the glass. I don’t gussy it up, I don’t do weird food stylist tricks like spraying chocolate with hairspray to make it look glossy or adding marbles to soup bowls to make the vegetables and meat higher. Because I actually like to eat the food I make and photograph. I hate waste, especially food waste, and I can’t fathom eating a brownie that’s been sprayed with hairspray. And I’d be afraid of choking on the marbles in my soup. So all my food is real, as it really looks. Except for this. It really is a big old fake.
I have my reasons for stooping so low. I take all of my photos in the middle of the day when the natural light is at its best. But I don’t, as a general rule, drink cocktails in the middle of the day. Maybe a glass of wine once in a while when out to lunch with a friend. But my low carb Vanilla Latte Martini is a cocktail with a capital C. It looks like an afternoon pick-me-up, and it tastes like dessert, but it’s seriously potent stuff and I have way too much to do in the afternoon to risk the buzz at lunchtime. So the pictures here are just a mix of regular coffee and a little cream, so that I wouldn’t be tempted to partake after the photos were complete. It looks like the real deal, certainly, but it’s harmless.
Of course, now that it’s 5pm and I am writing up my post, I’ve made myself a real Vanilla Latte Martini and it’s heavenly. This delicious little aperitif is my own brainchild, stemming from the creation of my homemade sugar-free coffee liqueur. Making your own liqueur is a lot of fun, but not being that much of a cocktail drinker, I am sometimes left wondering how to use it. The majority of cocktail recipes I find online are filled with sugary liqueurs and other additives, and I am left to my own devices to come up with a low carb cocktail. So I usually just open my liquor cabinet and try to figure out what I can throw together which won’t send my blood sugar soaring. Sometime the results are less than desirable and usually I don’t make that particular cocktail again.
But this combination? How could I go wrong? Coffee flavoured liqueur and vanilla infused vodka, softened and enriched by heavy cream. It was a winner even before I poured it into our martini glasses and we’ve made it many times since.
Vanilla Latte Martini – Low Carb and Gluten-Free
Ingredients
- 3 ounces vanilla vodka
- 2 ounces homemade coffee liqueur
- 1 tbsp cream
Instructions
- Fill a cocktail shaker with ice. Add coffee liqueur, vanilla vodka and cream. Shake well and divide between two chilled martini glasses.
