baking a cake for my sponsor
 

I'm not sure what to do. My sponsor's birthday is coming up and we are in the middle of a Step Study. We've been getting together on Saturday nights for about 5 weeks with a group of women. I found this great cake recipe Tangerine.

I made it for my husband in February and it was delicious. I wanted to make it for my sponsor because when it's completed - it looks like sunshine...

I improvised this time on the icing - and jazzed the orange flavor up with orange zest and then added orange extract. When cleaning up - I noticed there is 39%alcohol in the orange extract :c004:

Should I toss it????

Oh dear, that doesn't sound good! Personally, I know I can't use products with alcohol in, I can't cook with wine or anything. To be honest, if it were me in this situation, I'd toss it because of the alcohol.

How frustrating though!

Maybe gift it to someone not in recovery or yes dump it ?

what exactly were the ingredients in the frosting - proportion wise

like how much extract did you use?

Lost of restaurants serve dishes to kids with wine sauces, and the like. I wouldn't worry about it too much -- she's not enough going to notice the tiny bit of alcohol in it.

I'd ask your sponsor if they ate cake with frosting. And be honest. Most extracts have about 35% alcohol content. Most desserts have some alcohol in it from those extracts.

can you scrape the icing off and then make a new one just with orange zest? it would cover up whatever damage was done from the scraping-off, too....

a standard 'shot' 1.5 oz in America is 9 teaspoons of measured liquid.

A typical frosting recipe calls for 2 teaspoons of extract. For ease of math let's just say 8 teaspoons is a shot - err conservatively also.

Let's go with 40% alcohol in extract. A shot of 40% alcohol - 80 proof would provide 3.6 teaspoons of pure alcohol.

However, 2 teaspoons of extract at 40% is 25% of 40% of 9 or 8.

That comes out to .8 of a tsp of alcohol diluted and spread out over a whole cake. Let's assume you get 8 slices from a cake. That is 1/8 of .8 of a teaspoon of alcohol ingested. Or .125 of .8 of a teaspoon of alcohol. That is .1 of a teaspoon of alcohol per slice of cake.
I'm guessing one would have to eat a hundred pieces of cake to catch a buzz.

You can have your cake and eat it too.

Most icings have vanilla extract in them. I've never heard of anyone worrying about it. I've known alcoholics who have DRUNK extract when nothing else was available, but I've never heard anyone raise concerns about regular icing that is made with extract as a flavoring, spread all over a cake. It is such a tiny amount that you get in the icing, and the icing is spread all over the cake, that you aren't getting enough to affect you.

In learning how to live life without alcohol
using a recovery program as a guideline,
I was taught about Openminedness,
Willingness and Honesty.

Those 3 capital letters can form the words...

H.O.W or W.H.O. or W.O.H. or H.W.O.

We can learn to be willing, openminded
with honesty the last one we pick up. or
begin with an openmind, then willingness
with honesty the very last thing.

Then many become totally honest
from the very start with the other 2
to follow.

In any case, honesty is very important
in learning to live life in recovery. Honesty
to the best of our ability in a way as to not
hurt another.

I listen to my gut because normally it
doent steer me wrong. If I do something
and my conscience is bothering me, and
ive been dishonest with someone, then
I know that I must make my amend to
them to make that wrong a right.

Being honest keep me from having
to return to face that person I was
dishonest with and make my amends
to.

For one thing, in order to remain sober,
for me, is to make sure that my house
is in order, clean and that there is no
alcohol present to tempt me in anyway.

I was inspired by my own sponsor who
baked a lot for many people. In turned
I learned to do the same which kept me
sober for a many one days at a time.

Anyway, I guess I would ask myself,
would I want my sponsee to present
me with a lovely cake if I didnt know
there is alcohol in it or made with alcohol.
No matter if it a large or small amount?

If I ate her cake and later learned she
used alcohol in it and didn't for warn
me about it, then the trust I would have
had in her would be broken.

Trust is just as important as it is
to be honest with ones self in recovery.

Just my thoughts as always.:)

Exactly that!
It s not about the amount or whether or not it is even significant or noticeable, it is about trust and also respect.
People in recovery have different take on hidden alcohol content, example is that some people are comfortable using mouthwash with alcohol in it, others not. Some still cook with alcohol, others don't.

I bet people would be surprised to know that coca cola adds alcohol to its recipe. So any time you offer someone a coke make sure to tell them it is made with alcohol too.

People actual buy extract to get drunk on sadly enough. Don't think it's appropriate for your AA friends .......