COLD BREW WITH COCONUT CREAMER

I actually don't buy fancy drinks often but I love them. We spend a large part of our income on food and it seems like one place I can tighten things up. However, in a "treat yo'self" moment, I recently picked up the new one from Trader Joes and after spending nearly $5 on this tiny beverage, I had high expectations that were not met. Hugh makes us cold brew in the warm months so I'm putting him on explaining some of that to you. Tools, beans and such. He made the coffee, I made the coconut creamer from The First Mess and now I can make a special iced coffee on my own terms. The creamer is easy, it just requires a blender and a few staple ingredients. It does get a little firm in the fridge so I leave out before I need to use it or let it sit in a warm water bath to become a little more liquid. In the dairy free creamers you get at the store, there are a handful of funky ingredients that keep them a liquid and emulsify into your coffee, hot or cold. This creamer has more of a homemade texture to it and I like it that way. Makes me want to keep this as a fridge staple. We have two other coffee posts, Chemex and a video with the French press (in our old apartment! nostalgia!) if you fancy. 

In other summery news, I wrote a salmon taco recipe for Food52 and that avocado sauce has been a fridge staple. On eggs, veggie bowls, tacos, thinned to salad dressing, everything. Take a peek if you need a dinner idea!

COLD BREW COFFEE
Makes about 6 cups

There are all sorts of variations for this process, but we use a Toddy T2N Cold Brew System. It's simple, relatively inexpensive, and easy to use. The following brew method is adapted from their instructions, and makes about 6 cups of cold brew coffee concentrate.

12 ounces fresh roasted coffee - ground slightly finer than you would for drip. I grind at setting 10 (of 40) on a Baratza Virtuoso, for reference.
7 cups cold, filtered water

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COCONUT CREAMER
Makes about 14 ounces

Creamer adapted from The First Mess

4 pitted dates
1 14-0z. can full fat coconut milk
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 tsp. sunflower oil (or other neutral oil that is a liquid at room temperature)

COLD BREW

Fill - First, insert the stopper into the outside bottom of the brewing container; then, dampen the filter and insert it into the inside bottom of the brewing container. 

Next, add 1 cup of water into the bottom of the Toddy brewing container and 6 ounces of ground coffee. Slowly pour 3 more cups of water over the grounds, in a circular motion. Then, add the remaining 6 ounces of ground coffee. Finally, wait 5 minutes and slowly add the last 3 cups of water. DO NOT STIR (stirring the bed of grounds can result in a clogged filter). 

Lightly press down on the topmost grounds with the back of a spoon to ensure all grounds get wet. 

Cover - lay a sheet of plastic wrap over the top of the grounds with as few air bubbles as reasonably possible. The idea here is to minimize the amount of oxygen interacting with the steeping slurry. 

Brew - Steep your coffee grounds at room temperature for 12 to 24 hours to create a smooth, rich flavor. 

Filter - Remove the plastic wrap and the stopper and let your coffee concentrate flow into the glass decanter - stays fresh for 1-2 weeks in your refrigerator.

Serve - Into a glass full of ice, we went with a ratio of 2 parts coffee (which is a concentrate) to 1 part water to 1 part creamer. Not super sweet or decadent, so you can adjust that based on your own mood. 

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COCONUT CREAMER

If your dates are soft, move forward with the recipe. If they are a little dry or tough, soak them in boiling water to soften then drain completely. 

In a high powered blender, run the dates, coconut milk, vanilla and oil until you have a smooth, thick liquid with minimal chunks of dates. Strain the creamer with a fine mesh strainer. 

Into a glass full of ice, we went with a ratio of 2 parts coffee (which is a concentrate) to 1 part water to 1 part creamer. Not super sweet or decadent, so you can adjust that based on your own mood. 

COFFEE + CARDAMOM SHORTBREAD

Have you had your share of treats? Sorry. I just got my kitchen in (rough) working order and it's the last week to go big. I generally am one for an underdone oatmeal chocolate chip cookie. Maybe a brownie type cookie if it tastes like real chocolate and not just cocoa powder. I also love these Peanut Butter Cookies from Heidi that my sister in law used to make all the time. But a pal who knows her way around baking recipes sent me these delicious goat butter shortbread cookies months ago when Curran was a wee thing and it felt like a dream to get homemade cookies in the mail. Until then, I didn't realize that I really liked shortbread. It always seemed like such a plain choice amongst cookies. Sure, butter makes things tastes good, but I don't need a butter cookie. Give me your chocolate. I ate the whole package of those buttery little coins when I thought it'd be a cookie easy to refuse. Which brings me to this recipe that caught my eye when browsing for holiday cookies in The New Sugar and Spice cookbook. It is a shortbread recipe spiced with coffee grounds and cardamom and while I'm sure you could roll it out and use cookie cutters, Samantha suggests baking it in a fluted tart pan or springform pan so you can pop the disk out and cut it into wedges or geo shards as we did here. These are not as dry and snappy as a traditional shortbread. I replaced a mere 1/4 cup of the flour with nut meal because I love the warmth it gives to baked goods and I'm sure that contributed to the change but for shortbread, they are pretty tender. Not a bad thing, just not necessarily par for the shortbread course. They taste of butter, of course, but the heavy hand of spices and vanilla make them so much more of a cookie. It stands out on a platter for sure and there is still time to leave some for your neighbor, mailman or the UPS guy that is still delivering packages at 8pm. Perhaps you're sick of baked goods but the way I see it, we have another week before all the cleansing and salads so what's one more?

A very warm and bright holiday to each of you. You make our year that much richer, thank you for reading along. 

COFFEE + CARDAMOM SHORTBREAD // Makes 12ish large triangles
Recipe adapted from The New Sugar and Spice Cookbook by Samantha Seneviratne
 

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, nearly room temp
2 teaspoons ground coffee (a light or medium roast)
1 tsp. cardamom seeds (or 1 1/2 teaspoons cardamom)
1 cup unbleached all purpose flour
1/4 cup plus 2 Tbsp. almond or hazelnut meal
1/3 cup confectioners sugar
1/4 cup packed muscavado sugar (or dark brown sugar)
1/2 tsp. Kosher salt
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 325'. Butter  9" fluted tart pan or spring form pan.

Grind your spices until very finely ground. In a large bowl, whisk together the spice mixture, flour, nut meal, powdered sugar, muscavado or brown sugar and salt to mix. Into a stand mixer or with an electric mixer, beat in the butter and vanilla to combine. 

TIp the dough into the prepared pan using wet fingers. Press it into an even layer on the bottom, all the way to the edges. Freeze it until firm, about 15 minutes. 

Bake the shortbread on a rimmed baking sheet to catch any leaking butter. Bake for 40-45 minutes until the top is golden brown. Immediately, and while the dough is still warm, use a sharp paring knife to score the shortbread into wedges or slices as you wish. Set on a rack to cool completely. When it's cool, remove the cookie and gently break it apart along it's edges. 

Store the shortbread in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days or in the freezer for a month.

BROWN BUTTER ESPRESSO CHIP MUFFINS

While on a phone interview yesterday morning, a woman asked me if my cooking style has changed since I started the site 3+ years ago. First off, I am not a quick draw on those types of questions. I fill silence with a few "ums" and "well..." but it doesn't buy me the time I need to give an adequate answer. I said that I've taken into account what readers seem to respond to, where they comment the most (which I really appreciate), and I try to keep simplicity in mind as that always seems to be the overall theme of popular posts. People like simple - I get that. I like simple too.

I later thought about her questions and the passage of time in this space, and I realize that my cooking here has only changed as my life has changed first. A response to the different chapters of our story - my food somehow emotionally connected to other things going on. In posts of years past, I had mentioned a number of times how I did not like baking. I don't care much for precision or seeing the amount of butter in my cookies (I like to eat it, but maybe I don't want to see it). I would bake because I was building variety here and I wanted to learn, but it was motivated by an obligation of sorts. Those were days where I lived alone in a studio apartment and I mostly cooked for myself. Hugh and I worked on blog posts in my parents' kitchen on days off from work and the last thing my devil of a sweet tooth needed was a bunch of baked goods around. But after a wedding, a full apartment kitchen, and a stand mixer of my own, I now bake pretty frequently. My will power isn't any stronger, but I show love with food. It's a communication tool for me, and if you know anything about love languages this may make more sense and seem a little less eccentric. I bake because it's a way of care taking, it isn't for me, and I didn't really notice it until that lady asked me that question.

Hugh is a sweet-in-the-morning-with-his-coffee guy so I experiment with breakfast goodies (we don't even eat bananas, I just keep them around to go bad so I can make tasty banana bread. I really have gone to the dark side huh?). I tried these muffins for a little something different, as coffee seems to be the way to my husbands heart. The crumb is pretty light, the sweetness is subtle and we've already gone through half of them before a breakfast has passed so I will assume that means they're alright.

BROWN BUTTER ESPRESSO CHIP MUFFINS // Makes 8-10

Inspiration from Cannelle et Vanille and La Tartine Gourmand

These could easily be made gluten free with one quick change - just substitute GF all purpose flour or rice flour for the spelt. Spelt is wheat free, but not gluten free. I would suppose this would also come out well in a smaller sized loaf pan, but I can't attest to this from experience. Let me know if you try it.

• 1/2 cup/ 8 Tbsp. unsalted butter or coconut oil

• 2 eggs

• 1/3 cup plain whole milk yogurt or applesauce

• 1 tsp. vanilla extract

• 2/3 cup packed muscavado sugar (or light brown sugar)

• 3/4 cup, spelt flour

• 1/3 cup oat flour (just grind up some rolled oats)

• 1 cup almond flour/meal

• 1 tsp. baking powder

• 1/2 tsp. baking soda

• 1/2 tsp. sea salt

• 1 tsp. cinnamon

• 1 Tbsp. espresso or finely ground coffee

• 3 oz. dark chocolate, chopped

• // streusel //

• 1/2 cup old fashioned rolled oats

• 2 Tbsp. unsalted butter or coconut oil

• 1/4 cup turbinado sugar

• pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 350'. Grease a standard muffin tin or fill with paper liners.

Melt the butter in a small pan over medium heat. Cook, stirring occasionally until the solids turn a light brown color, it's a nice shade of amber and it starts to smell nutty. About 10 minutes. Remove from the heat to cool. If using coconut oil, skip this step.

Whisk the eggs, yogurt or applesauce and vanilla together. Once the brown butter is slightly cooled, whisk that in as well. Go ahead, put your nose in there, that smell is all sorts of amazing. In another large mixing bowl, stir the muscavado, spelt flour, oat flour, almond meal, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, espresso together to combine. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir to mix. Stir in the chopped chocolate but do not overmix.

In another small bowl, for streusel, combine the oats, butter, turbinado and pinch of salt. Press it together with your fingers to mash everything together.

Scoop the batter into the tins about 3/4 full. You will get somewhere between 8 to 10 depending on how you fill them. Sprinkle a bit of streusel on top of each muffin. Bake on the middle rack for 20 minutes or until centers are just cooked through. Remove to cool.