I promised you my winning ‘coffee and….’ recipe last week and so here it is. The challenge was designed by Union Roasted for our day out to their roastery to get us thinking about what would pair best with coffee. In doing so thus encouraging us to think about not just what we’re used to accompanying our favourite beverage, but to dig a little deeper and taste characteristics and flavour nuances that could be extricated by a clever pairing, or at least that’s how I went about my entry.

You might also like: Pump Street Bakery Sourdough and Sea Salt Chocolate

My initial thoughts were to bring along some single origin chocolate as, more often than not, this is my own preferred coffee partner. A Madagascan chocolate with it’s fruity red berry notes complementing and enhancing a coffee from Costa Rica, with it’s similar flavours. Or perhaps something really mellow, smooth, rich and….well, chocolatey like Akesson’s Fazenda Monte Alegre from Brazil, so that the sometimes bold flavours of each aren’t struggling against each other too much. You could of course, go right to the other end of the scale with something that really packs a punch like Duffy’s Academy of Chocolate award winning Honduras Indio Rojos, with it’s seriously rich flavours of currents, orange zest and even a touch of coffee. But then it all started to get a bit serious on Twitter with competitors talking about baking up a storm, and my own suppressed competitive streak came to the fore; it might be nice to enter a competition, but it’s even nicer to win….oh dear.

I decided on my soft biscotti or cantuccini recipe mainly because they’re all flavours I particularly like, they also seemed in keeping with, if not the weather a the moment, then at least what we’d normally expect from Autumn. I was also inspired by the recent Coffee Saturday Biscotti Bake-off orgnised by Daniel Young that I didn’t get the chance to enter. I think the biscuits would happily pair well with most coffees, but there’s quite a few ingredients there so I wouldn’t suggest anything too delicate, maybe a nice mild, smooth and sweet Ethiopian Yirgacheffe as was suggested by Jeremy and Steven on the day.

Ginger, Hazelnut, Fig and Chocolate Spelt Biscotti:

• 200g wholegrain spelt flour
• 30g softened butter
• 1 egg beaten
• 125g light muscovado sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 100g blanched hazelnuts roghly halfed
• 50g good dark chocolate
• 50g dried figs
• 2 pieces stem ginger chopped with a glug of the syrup
• half a teaspoon cinnamon
• pinch of salt

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Line a large baking tray with baking paper.

Cream the butter and sugar, add the egg, then sift in the flour, baking powder and salt. Stir in all your other ingredients and tip out on to a flour dusted work surface.

Work the dough into a long sausage shape almost the length of the tray and flatten slightly so the width is more than the height. Place in the oven and bake for about 20 minutes until it’s golden but still quite soft. While still hot quickly slice into the dough at an angle in about 2 cm spaces then go back and cut all the way through; as the dough cools this gets harder to do so work quite quickly.

Gently lay the slices back on the baking tray and return to the oven for around 5-10 minutes to toast them, they should be darker around the edges but still a little soft in the centre.

Serve with the coffee of your choice. Don’t forget you can get a 10% discount on any of Union’s coffees online if you use the checkout code ‘FAERIE10′ www.unionroasted.com

The post Coffee and Ginger, Hazelnut, Fig and Chocolate Spelt Cantuccini first appeared on The Faerietale Foodie.

His response, after assuring him he wouldn’t want it, was one I get often – ’Why can’t you blog stuff that will actually come up on a Google search?’.

He says this with mild contempt, as he doesn’t understand the concept of doing things ‘just because’. Just because I want to, because it’s fun, because I can. Because I’m not fussed about SEO or monetisation.

Add to this the fact that I HATE being told what to do. I SHALL eat weird combos if I want to. sticks bottom lip out

The idea for this was formed during and after a leisurely wander along Bellenden Road, as I’m wont to do after a weekend morning’s gym session, and find myself in the uber middle class shopping den of General Store.

As usual, all sensibilities go out the window as I purchase random ingredients in no rhythm or order than that of prettiness and impulse. In hindsight they’re also ingredients that hint at a snifter of that Spring in the air that I grasp to my chest with culinary intentions.

I’m not a remotely girly girl, in most situations, but who can resist the pink kissed frilly hem of pink radicchio, soft focus bloom of the vegetable world, that pairs so well with slender slivers of marbled porchetta that lilt a similarly hued tune.

You might also: Pao de Queijo and the Beauty of Breakfast Abroad

I want a toastie. A toastie needs cheese. This one, I feel will benefit with a combination. A smear of goats curd shouts ‘hazelnuts’, so these also go in, lightly toasted and smashed. But it also needs melty cheese for full on, molten toastie effect.

I’d brought a wheel of cheese back from my trip to Brazil. Typical of the region of Minas Gerais, where local cheese is as ubiquitous as dulce de leche. Often served together no less. They have two common varieties; a pale, firm, fresh and unsalty number and then this. I visited the farm where they produce this particular one, named simply ‘Araxa Quesa’ – cheese of the region it’s exclusive to; just 9 cities within the region of Minas own the PDO. This award winning farm’s 56 cows (including a number of Jersey’s I notice with astonishment, standing out with those doleful eyes and lengthy lashes against the local ones that look to me to be indian with their drooping ears and slender physique, though I’m told they’re both a fairly common thing here) are milked twice a day with all production going to make cheese. The unpasteurised cheese is sold at different stages of ageing, the locals preferring it pale and milky but it’s aged much longer and also exported nationally (mine has got a proper funk going on, but I’m told to keep it out of the fridge to let it develop naturally). It’s affectionately known as ‘drop cheese’ due to it’s dripping process, it’s then stored, rotated and washed regularly. It’s delicious eaten in slices with their coffee, taken black and sweet, served in glasses and always made in batches then kept in a thermos for whenever required. Eaten for breakfast, snacking and post meals, the Brazilians of Minas like cheese. A lot. Even their butter tastes and smells like cheese.

ANYWAY. I figured it would make a great addition to my cheese mixture, and a pungency to add structure to what was, so far – sweetly bitter radicchio, sweet and fatty porchetta, nutty hazelnuts and creamy curd. I finish this combo off with more sweet and nutty in the form of comte and then a drizzle of truffle honey.

Did I mention that the bread I used is made by Little Bread Pedlar? They make the best pastries I’ve tried in London and their sourdough ain’t too shabby either, it looks like they’re stocking it regularly at General Store too. Good bread times for SE as Brickhouse opens shortly with their own cafe, using Square Mile coffee too no less.

I give you – The Pink Toastie – pure unbridled romance. If you’re into that sort of thing

Construction tips

Butter outside sides of the bread liberally – I usually do the insides too (and ALWAYS match the slices up so they don’t sit back to front – yeah, OCD)

Spread the bottom, inside, layer with goats curd and scatter over toasted hazelnuts, lay over crisp leaves of pink radicchio, then thin slices of porchetta or other fatty ham. Finally add handfuls of the other two cheeses, grated and mixed together. Always much, much more than you think is decent.

Place in a sandwich or panini press and leave for much longer than you think it needs. The cheese should fully melt, pool around the base of the sandwich and then crisp up again for optimal sandwich crust.

If you don’t have a sandwich press, a similar effect can be achieved by placing the sandwich in a heavy based frying pan with a weighted plate on top, then flip half way through so both sides toast.

As a sub for the minas cheese, I’d probably use something of a washed rind but firm.

You might also like: Gypsy Tart with Cachaça Lime Curd

I’ve barely touched the cachaca I brought home from Brazil, in fact most went out as gifts, mainly because I simply couldn’t imagine it tasting the way I’d developed such a taste for, made here in the deep murkiness of London as it makes it’s final push to emerge from the grips of Winter. But, believe me, we encountered plenty of it whilst out there, at least one caipirinha a night was the rule. Not a bad one to live by to be honest. Of course it’s made from fermented sugar cane juice, which I tried on the side of the road, squeezed fresh and simply directly from the cane – the ultimate in thirst quenching sugary treats.

Back home, as another kick up the backside to Spring, I made a twist on the classic by subbing lime for floral bergamot – pure sunshine in a glass.

Muddle 1 quarter of a bergamot, chopped into wedges with 1 tablespoon golden sugar (I’d LOVE to try this with raw cane sugar) then shake with plenty of cracked ice and 60ml good quality cachaça and serve.

Try it!

I gathered many and varied versions of the sugar cane spirit across the regions I travelled, caipirinhas should be made with the clear or silver variety rather than the barrel aged sipping ones. I need to investigate the brands over here…

The post Three Cheese, Porchetta, Pink Radicchio, Hazelnut & Truffle Honey Toastie first appeared on The Faerietale Foodie.