There’s much more to coffee than the all too familiar morning cup. From delicate, crystalline Granitas that cleanse the palate to devilishly dark chocolate truffles that melt in the mouth, coffee’s rich, smoky flavours can enhance all types of dishes.
In cooking, coffee should be treated as a spice. Lighter roasts are more delicate but also more acidic, while darker ones are robust, toasty and strong. It’s these that work best in cooked dishes where the coffee must hold its own against other powerful flavours.
Ground coffee is better, especially if you’re creating something, such as a sauce, in which the coffee flavour, in all its complexity, should dominate. For the finest flavour, grind the beans just before you want to use them. Whereas wine contains in the region of 150 different flavour compounds, coffee has around 900.
Coffee can also be used to add a nutty, burnt-sugar tone to all kinds of dishes. The fact that it’s roasted is the key thing to remember. It works with other toasty flavours, from chocolate to caramel and nuts.
A simpler idea is to get your coffee kick with syrup – perfect for drizzling over creamy mousses, hazelnut meringues or warm-from-the-oven chocolate brownies. But the quickest way to add a coffee boost is just to pour it on, as in the straightforward but delicious Italian Afogato: a shot of Espresso poured over a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
Use the very best coffee and the very best ice cream and you have the ultimate coffee dessert: sweet, yet sophisticated, simple, but utterly scrumptious