Dark Roast Coffee Gelee: Dessert for a Morning Wake Up

Looks just like the picture above, right?

Ever since I saw this recipe on epicurious, I've been dying to make a dark roast coffee gelee. Luckily I had some gelatin packets left from my panna cotta experiment, and of course my handy dandy french press, so I knew I was good to go. 

I generally tend to crave savory foods, as opposed to sweet ones. But, thinking about the cupcakes I made yesterday was getting to be too much to ignore. Luckily, I had the gelee waiting in the fridge for a low calorie, sweet-tooth-satisfying pick-me-up to keep me going until lunch.

And forgive the unyielding structure of my coffee gelee. I had originally planned on setting it in glasses, similar to the ones in the picture above. But then I thought to myself, I bet I could just mold it into a nice shape in some coffee mugs. Obviously that was not the case.

Dark Roast Coffee Gelee

Note: I've adapted the recipe slightly, substituting white sugar for a mix of raw agave and an agave blend syrup, both from Trader Joe's. I think it made the flavor a little more mellow, and maybe a little sweeter than with white sugar (mellow, yet sweeter. It makes sense in my mind and in my mouth).

Ingredients:
2 1/4 C dark roast coffee (made from 6 tablespoons finely ground dark-roast coffee beans) plus 1 T cold water
1/4 C raw agave
1/4 C syrup (or Trader Joe's agave syrup blend)
1 1/2 t unflavored gelatin (from one 1/4-oz envelope)
2 t vanilla


Method:

Brew ground coffee in french press.

Sprinkle gelatin over 1 tablespoon cold water and let rest for one minute. Add the the hot coffee, agave, syrup, and vanilla to the gelatin mixture, stirring until dissolved.

Pour into glass tumblers or a gelatin mold. Chill, covered, until softly set, for at least 8 hours.

Meals from the Weekend

Friday

I thought about making Mexican and South African food, in light of the start of the World Cup, but given my lack of experience with African food, as well as a lack of plantains, I opted for Mexican. Sorry about the sideways pictures, but the food still tasted good.

Chickpeas, onion and sweet pepper simmered in tomato, cumin, cayenne pepper.

Greek Yogurt with a splash of lime juice and a dash of cayenne pepper (my replacement for sour cream)

Mashed Avocado with lime juice

Corn with diced sweet peppers and finely chopped romaine lettuce (Sorry, Mike, I ran out of cilantro)

Homemade taquitos (flour tortillas cut in half, rolled up and panfried, with shredded pork shoulder and sharp cheddar cheese)

Saturday

Weekends have tended to be my cooking overload days but I kept it easy. Used leftover chicken bones from last week's rotisserie chicken to make homemade chicken stock (more on that later). Auntie Anne's pretzel (*swoon*) and lemonade from the mall for lunch. Ordered Bangkok Bistro for dinner. Mike got his Ka Tiam Pik Thai and I got my Drunken Noodles. Yum.

Sunday

Pancakes day! I love making pancakes for breakfast. That is my one failproof recipe. I can pretty much make them by sight and I know that they will never fail me. Unfortunately, my bottle of syrup has been relocated to Mike's house and we were too lazy to walk the 2 blocks to go get it. So in 10 minutes I managed to whip up a syrup using balsamic vinegar, strawberry jam that I made from some frozen strawberries, and a couple of extra frozen strawberries in the freezer. 

I covered the bottom of a medium sauce pan with a film of balsamic vinegar and added some frozen strawberries to steam and dethaw in the reducing vinegar.When the vinegar began to bubble, I added about 4 tablespoons of the strawberry jam, and a tablespoon of white sugar. I then let that mixture come to a boil, then reduced it to a simmer for a couple of minutes, poured into a bowl and served with the pancakes. So a simple strawberry balsamic syrup was born and I forsee it showing up at the table in the near future, and not just at breakfast.

This week's menu should be up shortly.