Coffee*Love : Playtime coffee for tots

I found this amazingly cute post from Sew Homegrown for how to make a felt Starbucks play-set for your child's play kitchen!  You could have your children play-barista-ing away in a nice corner of your house while you enjoy the real thing!  However, I still think my son will continue to try and steal the real stuff... but this is still cute.

Cookie*Love - angel wings for your coffee

I just fell mildly in love.  It happens all the time. I see something cool, wish to have it, then see something else shiny... but bask in this moment of 'Look at this cool thing' with me.

Angel Wings Cookie Cutter

Enjoy!

Coffee*Love : Triumphs and Tragedy

Triumphs and Tragedy

In my quests for good coffee I have tried many a thing.  This last week I tried two.  Let's just say I am starting out by discussing the second one first, as it was more successful than the latter attempt.

Starbucks at home, the quest for the White Chocolate Mocha recipe.
This began with me searching again for an easy version of this recipe.  It would be much more authentic if I actually had an espresso machine anymore, or a milk frother to go with that, however, it would still be nice to have something that resembles the drink that has me addicted.  I even redeem my Swagbucks and my Air miles for Starbucks gift cards to stretch my tight monetary status.  (I can't say 'budget' because that would imply I have a plan for my low funds... and I don't)  Here is what I came up with from my searches and trials.

Okay, so this recipe isn't exactly like the coveted drink, but it is pretty good, and if you had the proper espresso and found the perfect white chocolate instead of just going out and buying a bag of Chipits, I am sure this could be way closer to the actual recipe. 

White Chocolate Mocha (ish)

Ingredients:

2/3 cup whole milk (use half and half if you like it richer, use 2% or skim if you like it lighter)

6 tablespoons white chocolate chips (or shave/chop 2 ounces of white chocolate)

Coffee, any kind.  Obviously espresso would be best, but any coffee will due if that isn't an option.

Whipped cream (optional)

Directions:

Add milk and chocolate chips to saucepan. Heat and stir until chips are melted. Meanwhile brew coffee  or make espresso. Pour half of milk mixture in coffee mug and fill rest of mug with coffee, saving enough room for whipped cream if you are using it.  Drink with a spoon handy if you are doing something like, oh, writing a blog post, because the white chocolate will 'skin' a bit if you leave it unattended for a while.  I will attend to mine now for a moment, then move on to the failed coffee moments.

Okay, now many years ago my mother-in-law got a gift set of coffee and offered us the coconut flavored grinds when we came for a visit.  It was the best non-mocha coffee I have ever had.  My husband couldn't even believe I remembered that coffee after all these years, but it just kind of stuck with me.  This lead me on a journey to try and find the best coconut coffee flavoring I could.  I, for some reason, choose the 'coffeemate-ish' route.  I guess it is because I had been using tonnes of hazelnut C-mate for a month or so. 

I do a few searches, but no one has anything on making your own coconut coffee anywhere.  The closest thing I could find was that there is such a thing as "Coconut Creme C-mate" (guess it's only in the States...)  but alas, no recipe.  It would be nice to completely eliminate the C-mate all together anyways, it is hydrogenated and full of fake stuff, and a bit costly. 

I come up with the idea to make my own, so I go out and get a big container of half and half, and find some coconut oil.  Let's just say, the concoction I came up with did not even taste like coconut.  My first mistake with that was after heating two cups of half and half with the tablespoon of coconut oil (it says coconut oil in the C-mate ingredients, go figure this goes soo wrong)  I decide to put this into a bar shaker, and since the shaker is stainless steel I forget that it will be a good idea to let it cool first.  One tiny shake later, I am cleaning half of it off the floor.  In my defense, my baby was having a nap and I wanted to finish and have coffee before he woke up.
 
With what was left I made the second mistake; using it in my coffee.  It was like a mouth full of oily wax and it had the look of a coffee lava lamp with all the oily bubbles in it.  Time to clean it all out and try something else.

I figured I didn't have much time left before the baby awoke, so I took the remaining 2 cups of half and half and dumped it in the shaker, (freshly cleaned and de-greased of course) and grabbed a can of coconut milk out of the cupboard, adding it to the mix.  I added a teaspoon of real vanilla extract, shook it and added it to the coffee.  Not bad, not the best, but next time I will take the time to heat it and add about a cup of sugar, that would make it pretty good.  Not the coffee I had years ago but alright.  I might try to find some coconut extract and add a measure to the pot before I brew some coffee, that might be even closer to what I am trying to achieve. 

So, if you are trying to attempt this, use extract or milk of coconut, not oil.  Trust me though, coconut coffee is worth a try if you can get a hold of it.  I can't find the bloody stuff anywhere though.


Inspirational recipe for the white chocolate mocha was found here:
http://starbucks-secretrecipes.blogspot.com/2009/05/starbucks-white-chocolate-mocha-recipe.html

Cinnamon coffee scones

 Baking with coffee.

At Folgers.ca they are offering free recipes that include their coffee, but I am sure any strong-brewed coffee would work for the recipes they offer.  ... also offering free recipes is not exactly a 'new' thing, but I did like the idea of this recipe... with the exception of raisins, I don't like raisins in my food.  To each their own I suppose. 

Prep Time: 15 minutes Total Time: 30 minutes Makes: Two dozen scones (depending on their size) 2 cups self-rising flour 2 teaspoons cinnamon 6 tablespoons sugar 1-1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) unsalted butter 2 eggs 1/4 cup strong brewed Folgers coffee 1/4 cup milk 1/2 cup golden raisins (or chopped dried apricots) 1/2 cup chopped pecans (or walnuts) Extra milk and sugar for toppings

Stir together the flour, cinnamon, and sugar. Cut the butter into tablespoon pieces and blend with the pastry blender or two knives into the dry mixture. (Butter pieces should be the size of small peas.) Mix together the eggs, coffee, and milk. Stir into the dry mixture to form a soft dough. Stir in the fruit and nuts. Turn out onto a floured board and gently pat into a circle of dough about 1/2" thick. Cut out rounds with floured biscuit cutter and place them on a greased baking sheet. Gently brush tops with milk and sprinkle with sugar. Bake in a preheated 400° F oven for 12 to 15 minutes or until golden-brown.

Coffee*Love : changing up the same old brew

Coffee.  Many of us love it.  I will take some time to rant and rave about my new grind and brew coffee maker in some other post, after I have got the hang of the programming thing... I don't care to elaborate in this post.  However, I do care to share some wonderful ideas I have found in my online recipe collecting fashion, as I have now just lost every link I had when my hard drive decided to bite the dust a week ago.  I guess I have an excuse now to search more recipes and earn more swagbucks towards my next free Starbucks cards.  Life goes on.

Tips on brewing the best coffee:

I worked at a Timmies for just over five and a half years, did all the training in every position except for management (I was a supervisor though, yay me :) so I feel I have sufficient knowledge in the coffee department.  I also have much drinking experience from the many coffee facilities in and around my fine city.
For the best coffee you need :

1. the best water you can get.  If you drink only filtered water because of the taste, then use tap water for coffee hoping a magic cure for that taste exists in the coffee, I am afraid you are wrong.  Coffee is 98% water, so if you don't like the taste of the water, your coffee will not be the best either.

2.  fresh coffee.  At Timmies they use the opened grinds immediately and throw the coffee every 20 minutes (in theory... there are always a few bad apples)  I am not saying you need to do that, but having the freshest ground coffee, kept in air-tight conditions, away from moisture, NOT in the freezer, (though if you absolutely must, you should divide it into coffee pot sized portions so that it doesn't go back and forth from freezer to counter, it causes the coffee to coagulate the oils that make it so pretty.)  and coffee starts to fade from its best after about two weeks, so try and buy what you need and not the costco bulk bag (unless you go through it, I do love costco... just costco efficiently)

3.  Preheat your cups and carafe.  To save you a google if you don't know what a carafe is, its the coffee pot.  just fill them with hot water before brewing and discard the water, and if your coffee maker has a cup warmer, all the better, but if not, the cups can get a hot water bath too, or steam from a steam nozzle.  This keeps the coffee hot longer, and helps the aroma develop. 

Now here is a link to some 'new tricks for your coffee'.  It's the little things like adding a cinnamon stick to your grounds or re-thinking your sweetening.

http://www.browniepointsblog.com/2009/05/10/new-tricks-for-your-coffee/

 As always, I could go on about coffee forever, but it is getting late, so this will be all for now.

Coffee Love: Starbucks white chocolate mocha

I have an addiction.  Okay, so I might have more than one, like chocolate and cheesecake.. I could go on, but one of my top addictions is coffee.  Fancy coffee, regular joe, lattes, mochas, pretty much the whole coffee food group (don't you wish it was a food group?)  I love it all.  I occasionally like to pay tribute to my favorites though, and today is one of those days.  I guess it is because I am almost at my swagbucks total to get my 3rd free starbucks card to feed my addiction.  Free coffee is always the best coffee ;)

Starbucks White Chocolate Mocha.  My absolute favorite above favorite drinks.  When I was young and visiting Toronto, I happened into a coffee place where my friend and I ordered white hot chocolate, a novel idea at the time to me.  I loved that way back then.  Later on in life I ended up in a Starbucks, and was trying to remember what I ordered that was so great as a child, at one of these 'fru-fru hippie' coffee places.  It wasn't normal for me to be near a place like that.  Not at that time. 

I ended up ordering a white chocolate mocha, which fueled an addiction to last the ages, being the best thing I had ever had.  It is even responsible for me drinking regular coffee again, and trying different coffees and places, because before that fateful moment I had not really liked coffee, I was only a tea drinker.  (I drink both now.)

I am only have the coffee budget to go their every once and a while, but I think it is worth a try if you ever end up in a 'fru-fru hippie' place like Starbucks.  You might just like it.  It may just change your life.


Also, if you are interested in getting free starbucks cards (or other free stuff for you non-coffee people) just for internet searching like you normally would, feel free to click my referral link and check out Swagbucks.