Coffee & Cinnamon Ice Cream

I have the luxury of working at a little organic market, where I have access to all sorts of wonderful food. Last month we got in the amazing Earth Balance cheese puffs & popcorn and then Phoney Baloney's coconut bacon. Today we finally got in Cocomels Coconut Caramels! Most of the time I am anxiously awaiting the new products, like the Daiya cream cheeses, but sometimes new products sneak up on me. And it can be so wonderful to be caught off guard by them! This is exactly what happened with Steve's Ice Cream. The Brooklyn company's sweets are mostly dairy based, but they offer a few non-dairy flavors. Steve's makes a mint cacao chip, but our little store currently only carries the cinnamon coffee & blackberry honey. Since I avoid honey I haven't tried the latter, but the coffee cinnamon knocked me out of this world. It's like the best latte that I have ever tasted, spun into this smooth & rich dessert. Not surprisingly it's made from coconut cream and cold brewed Blue Bottle coffee (no wonder the coffee flavor is so fantastic). My favorite ice creams are all coconut based, but you won't detect even a hint of coconut flavor if you have an aversion to it. It also doesn't hurt that their packaging has a really pleasing aesthetic, because I do judge my ice creams by their cover. If you can try this ice cream in Brooklyn or find it in a shop near you, I urge you to try it! I ate the whole pint by myself, which I don't think I have ever done before, but it was really that good. Normally I have to share my sweets with Greg or hide them before he devours them, but luckily he hates coffee. If I can figure out how to leave a pint in my freezer without eating it all, then this will be a great thing.


It's hard to believe that it's July already, but that means that Google Reader is closing shop. You should join me on Bloglovin' here if you haven't switched over already! They even created a handy little guide to import your reading list from Google Reader to Bloglovin', but you're gonna need to do it quick!

Caramel Stuffed Mocha Cookies

At the beginning of the month, once of the first things I made were the caramel stuffed apple cider cookies. It was a really nice coincidence that Spencer's Market had the caramels that I used on sale. I ordered two packages of the sampler packs, because I hadn't tried any of the other flavors. I opened the box and was wondering what I should do with the java flavored caramels. A little light went on in my head, and I decided to to put them inside mocha flavored cookies. I tweaked the recipe a little to add cocoa and espresso. The cookies were by no means perfect. I sprinkled a little extra sugar on top because they didn't seem near as sweet as the apple cider dough (which in retrospect makes total sense since the concentrated cider have tons of sugar in them). If you want to try them, I replaced 1/4 cup of the flour with Valhrona cocoa and added 2 tablespoons of ground espresso. The coffee flavor went largely unnoticed, so next time I might even add a teaspoon or two of coffee extract. I might play with the ratios a bit more next time so that the cookies crack a little more on top too. But overall, I am fairly pleased with them. These cookies were a very decent attempt to bake, photograph, and write about something on a sick day when your head feels like it might explode. Here's to hoping this cold doesn't last for too long!

Coffee & Donuts Cupcakes

I was making donuts for a bake sale for a few months ago and had a bit of batter left over from several batches. I make a few mini donuts to check their quality, but then realized that they had much more potential than being a half pint donut. A few minutes later,I was whipping up a batch of mocha frosting. Pipe that onto a dark chocolate cupcake with a hint of espresso powder, top it with a sprinkled donut, and you have what I deemed "the breakfast of champions." Hopefully, Kurt Vonnegut approved.



Chocolate Cupcakes
recipe adapted from VCTTOW

1 cup almond milk
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon ground espresso
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup canola oil
2 teaspoons coffee extract
1 teaspoon chocolate extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder (Valrhona if you can find it)
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350. Curdle the milk with the vinegar. Add the espresso, sugar, oil, & extracts. Whisk rapidly. Sift together dry ingredients in large bowl. Add met and mix until combined and smooth. Fill liners 3/4 of the way and bake 16-20 minutes.

While your cupcakes are cooling you want to bake your donuts & make your frosting. If you are a great multi-tasker, you could even bake your donuts and cupcakes at the same time. If you are gonna attempt this, I recommend prepping all your ingredients first. I do the dry ingredients for both items, then the wet. In this instance, I scooped my cupcakes while I was melting the butter for the donut batter. Then I tossed the cupcakes into the oven while I was making the donut batter and filling the pans. By the time you are finish with that they will both be ready to pull out of the oven at roughly the same time. Just be sure to put your donuts in the oven gently so that your cupcakes don't fall!


Mocha Frosting
very minorly adapted from Sweetapolita

1 cup Earth Balance
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 teaspoons coffee extract
5 oz quality bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped, melted and cooled
1/4 cup almond milk

Beat together the Earth Balance and powdered sugar. Add the extracts and mix again. Slowly pour in melted chocolate while the mixer is on. Add almond milk to desired consistency. You may not need all of the almond milk, but you could need a bit more. It's up to your preferences and a lot of little factors, like humidity and what not.


These cupcakes sold out so quickly that I was shocked. Everyone kept crooning over them and taking pictures on their fancy phones. I was all pink and my cheeks hurt from grinning. It felt so good that I made another batch to box up for a friend's birthday. I baked them in blue polka dot liners, put them in a pink polka dot box, and wrapped the box with baker's twine & tied a candle into the center of the bow. Major cute factor. Basically what I am saying is that these cupcakes will impress everyone. You can't lose.