coffee

A Mother’s Milk

- Alex Leave a comment

 

 

date of visit: Thursday 22 March 2012

A Mother’s Milk has been on my radar for a while (not that long as it did only open in January) but dragging myself out to Unley for a coffee has seemed like just a bit too much hard work. Certainly not the type of thing I’d manage on the spur of the moment.

But a bit of planning saw me finally make it to A Mother’s Milk – even if I ended up parking miles away (thank YOU, Parkside, and your warren of one way and blocked off street madness) and arriving for my coffee date late.

It’s a tiny café and when I arrived (baby and stroller in tow) I could hardly get into the front room. Fortunately, a kind patron opened the door for me and we squeezed in. Also, very fortunately, there are a couple of small rooms out the back – so don’t be put off if you turn up and it looks full. There might be a spot for you yet!

I headed out to the back room and we got ourselves settled in. Baby ensconced in high chair it was time to think about me. Unfortunately, they had run out sweet things – apparently they had had cakes, friands, muffins … and they were all sold out. Oh no! It was only half past 2, too! I was saved by the fact that, on the menu, they had sourdough served with goat’s curd and fig jam. That would more than do! As I hadn’t had lunch, I was not prepared to share (a serve is two chunky slices)!

The sourdough was great – it hit the spot, the jam, from Dirty Girl, had massive chunks of fig in it. It was very good – the type of thing you could eat out of the jar and justify as healthy because of the fruit content. The tiny bits of crust I gave to the baby were very much appreciated – so definitely pan-generational appeal there.*

The coffee is pretty good. To be honest, I found my cafe latte a little on the strong side (more milk please!) and I did order a second, requesting a weak one, but there was no difference which was a shame. However, that doesn’t mean the coffees weren’t good – they were, and if I’d been ordering long blacks I probably would have been really happy. I just like my cafe lattes really milky.

What marked out this visit was the fact that the staff were incredibly chilled out and accommodating. We were two adults and two babies and one of the babies was having something of an issue with being dragged out for coffee. The little chap was inconsolable unless he was trying to run out the door onto Unley Road but the staff remained even tempered, and attempted to chat to him, distract him and generally make it a good experience for everyone. No parent enjoys their baby being so distressed, and disapproving looks really don’t help the situation, so it was lovely to be made to feel welcome despite the rather large amount of noise our little group was making at various times!

Absolute top marks for service. I thought perhaps the food was a little expensive ($9 for the sourdough) but the coffees, at $3.30, were reasonable.

I’d definitely be happy to head back.

* The babycino also received the seal of approval.

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Coffee Ice Cream

- Alex Leave a comment

Of course, ice cream photographs badly … but I’m sure you get the idea!

A seriously underused cookbook in my collection is The Silver Spoon. This is the Italian cooking bible and covers absolutely everything. If you want to cook it and it’s vaguely Italian … you should find it in The Silver Spoon.

We were having some friends to lunch and, due to a hectic work/life schedule, we needed to choose a menu that could be prepared as much in advance as possible. As it was going to be warm, and our main course was going to be substantial, ice cream sounded like the perfect dessert.

I’m not sure how we decided on coffee ice cream but … decision made The Silver Spoon offered up a simple recipe so I borrowed the ice cream maker from mum and set about it.

Since my family discovered ice cream makers, almost 20 years ago, I haven’t bought commercial ice cream so I can’t be too sure on this point … but I’m willing to bet that a coffee ice cream from the shop will have a lot more than 6 ingredients.

The recipe says this will serve 6 people – in our case, it managed a lot more serves than 6, but in case you have voracious ice cream eaters to hand, let me tell you that it makes about 1L of the finished product.

Begin by scalding* 200mL milk (full fat, of course!) with the seeds that have been scraped from a vanilla pod. Or, if you have a pod left over from last time, just use the pod. Don’t be using vanilla extract/essence or the vanilla bean paste stuff. This is one time where you have to use the real deal.

Allow the milk to cool.

Beat 2 whole eggs with 150g of caster sugar until the mixture is light, fluffy and has expanded. You’re best off doing this with a stand mixer with the whisking attachment – it’ll be quicker and your arm won’t get tired! While beating, add 175mL of cooled extra strong coffee, followed by 200mL of cream (make sure you use pure cream, not the ‘thickened’ stuff) and finally the vanilla milk.

Ensure that everything is well combined and then pour into an ice cream maker and follow the machine’s instructions.

This ice cream doesn’t set super hard which is great because there is no stuffing around when you want to eat some. You can, literally, eat it straight from the container, straight from the freezer (er, we only did that when finishing it off … I promise!). I was a little unsure as to whether or not it was too sweet but everyone else assured me it was fine as it was. And indeed, there is a lovely balance between the bitterness of the coffee, the creaminess of the ice cream and the sweetness.

There are many different ways to put together an ice cream and what impressed me most about this recipe was the speed at which it can be made (I scalded the milk the morning and made the ice cream in the afternoon) and the fact that you’re not making a traditional custard, so you don’t have to worry about anything splitting. If you’ve ever thought about making your own ice cream and been scared for whatever reason: try this recipe!

* Bring the milk to the boil and remove from the heat immediately.

Coffee Poppy Seed Cake

- Alex 6 Comments

Coffee & Poppyseed Cake

You know how sometimes a coffee cake doesn’t have any coffee in it? It’s actually a cake to eat with coffee and the whole thing turns in to a disappointing experience?

Well, this is not that cake. A few weeks ago Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall published some coffee recipes in the Guardian and one of them was this cake, complete with coffee, poppy seeds and a very syrupy glaze/icing.

I can’t remember the last time I made a cake with poppy seeds in, even though I like them (both the poppy seeds and the cakes!) and I’m always thinking I should be a little more diverse in my cake making. Poppy seeds, like sesame seeds, are one of those things that can go off. They need to be stored in cool, dark places and used relatively quickly, otherwise they can go a bit rancid – and that’s not what you want in cake.

This is a simple recipe and is almost a one bowl wonder.

Begin by soaking, for at least 2 hours, 100g of poppy seeds in 80g of mascarpone (the recipe specifies sour cream, but I had mascarpone in the fridge). The poppy seeds soaked up all the mascarpone and it became quite a stiff mixture.

Preheat oven to 170°C and grease and baseline a 22cm spring form tin.

If you’re so inclined you can sift the dry ingredients first: 150g plain flour, 1 tsp bicarb, 1 tsp baking powder, ½ tsp of cinnamon and a pinch of salt. If you’re making this by hand (that is, without the kitchen trickery that is a food processor or a stand mixer) make the effort. Even with gadgets to hand, I’m starting to do more and more sifting …

Now cream 150g of unsalted butter with 250g of caster sugar, before mixing in three eggs, one at a time. Ensure each egg is well beaten in before adding the next. Mix in a 1 tsp vanilla essence and 40mL of espresso coffee. If you don’t have a coffee maker to hand, make up some really really strong coffee and use that.

Add in the flour a bit at a time, alternating this with the poppy seed/mascarpone mix. Mix until just combined and then spoon in to the tin and bake for 35-40 minutes (until the toothpick comes out clean).

Allow to cool for a little in the tin and then cool completely on a cake rack.

Now, for the icing HFW suggests using 125g of icing sugar (definitely sift this – it makes your life so much easier and your icing a lot less lumpy) and 50 mL of espresso. I did this but we found this icing too runny and, by the time it had soaked through the cake, it made the whole thing far too sweet. So I suggest making your favourite icing and adding a bit of coffee to it. Or dust it with icing sugar before serving – the poppy seeds make it quite an attractive cake even without icing so there’s no need to go mad.

I personally thought that the cake had a good coffee flavour which was accentuated by the cinnamon. The universal opinion was that it was too sweet and I really regretted making the icing.

So while I’ll definitely be making the cake again I’ll be passing on the icing.