Drunk Chronicles I : Rummy Mocha Biscuits

The beginnings of the alcohol collection. Finally! This is heaven babe. Sam has always talked about adding that dash of gin, or kahlua, or brandy into biscuits and cakes and i've never got round to doing it because i think i'm a whimp (so you'll find out when you read more) and besides, no one in my family would really fancy it i suppose since they link alcohol to festivities or some special occasion. But yes, i think it's preeeetty exciting don't you think? Simply thinking about vodka truffles and brandied biscuits makes me all hot and bothered. Heh, kiddin but seriously, it makes the end result so much sexier.

Anyway, hear ye. hear ye! My oven gave birth to rum flavoured biscuits this morning. I used the Rum flavoured Coffee granules from Whittard of Chelsea which i got from Leamington Spa. The rum taste wasn't as strong as I liked it. It wasn't real liquer. (yea..i'm a whimp aren't i?) Good enough an end result though. I thought it would give the mocha a nice little twist too, something different from the usual and it reduced the usual intensity of the cocoa. The coffee was a very black colour after it dissolved in the boiling water and contributed mainly to the body of the biscuit, expanding its flavour and enhancing the deep brown of the dough. I used Hershey's Cocoa Powder. However, I don't really like it because of its bland and weak brown colour. Quite unlike Valrhona's cocoa which is a very deep dark sexy brown. Couldn't use any other since I didn't have Valrhona with me and didn't have the heart to open my Cadbury one yet. :S

The first time I tasted mocha was at Starbucks. Sounds pretty pathetic, yeah I know, but from then on I was hooked. I thought it was such an exciting taste. Bitter yet sweet. And it didn't mask the flavour of the coffee all that much and yet it didn't entirely remove it. I'm really not a coffee person so the only way to drink coffee for me was to have it blended with chocolate! Honestly, I was ready to kiss the cutie toes of the genius who invented mocha. I read this book once titled Marrow about this chef with a huge you-know-what (hence the title and his restaurant Marrow), and there was a page right about the middle of the book that listed out the best pair of ingredients in the world. Chocolate and coffee was on that list and i couldn't agree more. Anyhow, that's what I tried to bring out in these biscuits. The beauty of mocha, with the sidekick flavour rum!...unfortunately, i think i failed. the biscuits didn't turn out crispy like i thought they would. instead, they were chewy and kind of brownie like. I guess that isn't bad but it really wasn't what i was hoping for. As mentioned earlier, the rum flavour wasn't as evident as I would have it too and the coffee tended to come out more than the chocolate. They were very pretty though and the dough came together very easily. It's definitely a recipe i would keep trying to improve and work on and with their prettiness, every one at home can't seem to keep their hands off it despite it's letdown for me.

I'm gonna forget bout this for now and work on my next experiment with real alcohol this time. :D Got a bottle of Irish Cream just seating there waiting for me to pour it out. Now tell me, what would you do?

For whoever's brave enough, recipe's here:

Rummy Mocha Biscuits (inspired by 'The Complete Cookie' by Barry Bluestein & Kevin Morrisey)
Ingredients
2 tbs instant rum flavoured coffee granules
1 tbs boiling water
1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt (i didn't add salt at all because i didn't want any savoury taste)
heaping 1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 tbs unsweetened cocoa
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 tbs vanilla
granulated sugar and whatever for decorating :)

Directions
Preheat oven to 190dCelsius.
Dissolve coffee in boiling water. Smell the good ol' scent of coffee whilst stirring carefully and set aside to cool.
Combine flour, baking powder and baking soda, salt, cinnamon and cocoa.
In another bowl, combine butter, brown sugar and egg. Beat at medium speed until light and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla. Follow with the coffee liquid. Stir in the flour mixture and mix by hand in gentle folding movements.
Drop on cookie sheets.
(the original recipe requires you to use the oiled base of a glass dipped in granulated sugar to flatten the cookie but the dough was a little on the sticky side. i didn't bother to flatten the cookie as i didn't think it would matter much and just went ahead to decorate it as i liked)
Bake for 9-10min, just until cookie starts to form nice-looking cracks. Remove and let cool on sheets for 1min then remove to wire rack to cool completely.

Baking Monday

Today was Baking Day with Sam! And mo. :) We started out with the Espresso Cupcakes. We used instant coffee granules instead because we couldn't find espresso but the recipe still turned out really great.

The cupcake was very light and fluffy which was great. The coffee taste came out really well although we didn't use espresso, but instead we increased it from a tablespoon of coffee to a heaped tablespoon to make up for the lack of intensity. But the icing was really the best part. It was just all chocolate and butter which made it really rich and complimented the airy lightness of the cake.

The recipe was a Nigella one. Here it is.

Ingredients

Cupcakes:

125g soft unsalted butter

125g dark muscovado sugar

2 large eggs, rtp

125g self-raising flour

1tbs cocoa powder

1tbs coffee granules

50g dark couveuture chocolate, melted over low fire

1,1/2tbs milk

Icing:

300g dark couveuture chocolate

50g unsalted butter (we used salted butter and it turned out great)

2tsp coffee granules

1tsp kahlua (coffee liqour)

Directions
Put the softened butter and sugar together in a bowl and using an electric mixer, beat till grainy. Add the eggs and beat again. Add the flour, cocoa (sifted) and then the coffee granules and mix till batter is really smooth. Sexy! Next, add the melted chocolate and the milk. The batter will thin up abit upon adding the milk. Mix till smooth then fill up the muffin cups.

Preheat at 200dcelsius. Cook the cupcakes for 12-15min.

For the icing, place the chocolate, butter and coffee powder into a pan and heat till everything melts, all the while stirring so the mixture is smooth and glistening. Once the butter and chocolate are melted, add the kahlua and leave to cool.

Once cupcakes are all cool and ready, slap on the icing and start swirling!

Next up was Pumpkin and Pecan 'pie' muffins. These were a really healthy bunch of muffins.
Sam did all the pumpkin pureeing before we came over and it smelt so good. One day I'm really gonna try bbqing pumpkin. Pumpkin soup is heavenly so i bet bbqing shd be even better. We substituted the pecans for walnuts and toasted it before we poured it into the batter. And little bit of raisins as well to sweeten up the muffins. These were made with a mix of normal flour and wholemeal flour. According to Sam, not many ppl like wholemeal flour. Maybe it's an acquired taste? Mel and bea don't like it but i like wholemeal flour. I think it gives the cake a very dense and pow-wow feel.
Anyway, we didn't mix these alot. Simply folded everything in and mixed it by hand, as muffins are to be done.
Anyway these are probably really great muffins for tea time. We had em for lunch together with the espresso ones! There it is, today's baking. Satisfying really. Ah.