Author Archives: mondomulia

About mondomulia

Italian girl in London. Passionate about photography, cooking, drinking coffee, running & travelling. Visit my food blog Mondomulia.

Toffee Coffee Cupcakes with Espresso Frosting

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I have a very special post for you today, for two reasons: first, the Diamond Jubilee celebrations are about to start and I decided to get into the spirit with Union Jacks cupcake cases and hand-crafted white/blue/red bunting! The recipe I have chosen is also a British classic: the sticky toffee pudding, but with my own twist!

The other reason to celebrate is that I am through to the next round of the Lavazza Coffee Set Match Bloggers Challenge! Expect more coffee-based recipes in the next few weeks!

- The story behind this recipe –

When I started the Lavazza competition, the first place I looked for coffee recipes was my favourite food blog Smitten Kitchen. I found a recipe for Coffee Toffee and immediately loved the name! Though the recipe didn’t appeal to me much, but a few days later while eating a Sticky Toffee Pudding at The Fish Club I had the idea of mixing the two desserts together!

I researched different toffee pudding recipes (thank you Peaches and Donuts for sending me one!), but I still was not 100% convinced that a coffee toffee pudding covered in caramel sauce could have enough of a coffee kick.

And then, Kate of The Little Loaf posted a recipe for Sticky Toffee Cupcakes and the idea was born for: Toffee Coffee Cupcakes with Espresso Frosting!

As I was completely new to this recipe, I asked Kate for ideas on how to incorporate coffee in the ingredients and she suggested to soak the dates in coffee, instead of water. I also decided not to have a caramel filling and to make an espresso flavoured frosting instead of the caramel one of the original recipe. Finally, I halved the doses to make 12 cupcakes, instead of 24.

The result was outstanding! I am honestly blown away by how good these cupcakes taste! There were so many chances of getting it wrong as the recipe involves multiples bowls and several stages and hours of work. I did actually mess up with the doses of vanilla essence and bicarbonate of soda, a I used a tablespoon instead of a teaspoon, but luckily the cupcakes were not affected by my mistake! ;)

Ingredients

For the cake mix
50ml coffee
145g dates, pitted and roughly chopped
1 tsp vanilla extract
75g unsalted butter, softened
120g Muscovado sugar
145g self-raising flour, sifted
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 small free-range eggs
70g walnuts, chopped

For the sugar syrup
50ml water
50ml caster sugar

For the frosting
100g full fat cream cheese
100g unsalted butter
250g icing sugar, sifted
50ml espresso

Preparation

Preheat the oven to 175 °C. Line two 12-hole muffin trays with cupcake liners.

For the cakes
Remove the pit from the dates and chop them roughly, place them in a bowl and pour over the hot coffee. Leave to soak for 20 minutes until the coffee is fully absorbed, then add the vanilla extract.

Cream the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy. Sift the flour and bicarbonate of soda into a separate bowl and set aside.

Whisk the eggs lightly in a bowl and slowly combine with the butter and sugar mixture.

Once all the egg is incorporated, fold in the remaining flour followed by the soaked dates and chopped walnuts. Stir until the batter is just combined then divide between the cupcake cases (filling only 2/3 of the paper cups).

Bake for 15′ until the tops are golden brown and remove from the oven.

For the sugar syrup
Bring the sugar and water to the boil in a small pan, then simmer until all the sugar crystals have dissolved.

When the cakes are out of the oven and still warm, brush the sugar syrup over the tops. Leave the cupcakes to cool down for at least one hour before adding the frosting.

 

For the frosting
Beat the cream cheese in a mixing bowl until light and creamy. Beat the butter and icing sugar in a separate mixing bowl until very pale and fluffy.

Add the cream cheese to the butter and sugar mixture a little at a time until combined. Slowly add the coffee – you can play with the quantities here, depending on your preferences on taste and colour. Beat until combined, then chill until set.

To frost the cupcakes, fill a piping bag fitted with a round nozzle and pipe a swirl of frosting on each cupcake. Decorate with coffee beans or by sprinkling ground coffee over the frosting.

Store them in the fridge and serve them at room temperature.

Pitt Cue Co.

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After months of postponing, the day finally arrived for me to try the most famous American-style BBQ joint in London, Pitt Cue Co.

Opened in January by chef Tom Adams and his friend Jamie Berger, Pitt Cue has already reached cult status, for its fantastic meat as much as for its long queues. With only 30 covers and a no-reservation policy, it’s no surprise that it takes 1-2 hours on average to sit in the tiny Soho restaurant.

There are ways to beat the crowd: for dinner, arrive before their opening time at 6pm or alternatively get there after 9pm! Anything in between, and you will be spending a long time standing outside the door or inside at the bar.

I planned a foodie meet-up with three bloggers: Selina of Yummy Choo Eats, Katy of Feel Good Food Book and Laura of The Writing Type. In the queue on Newburgh Street, we also randomly met James and Louis of The Pizza Pilgrims, who entertained us during the 2-hour wait for a table!

The pilgrims introduced us to the Pickle Back, a two shot drink of bourbon and pickle brine. Sounds disgusting? Surprisingly it isn’t…thought it didn’t leave me longing for a second round either! :)

After the shots, I moved on to the beer: deciding against the “Whatever” draught beer, I ordered a Kernel pale ale.

Around 8pm we got seats by the window. Chatting and sharing food is not easy when you are sitting in a line facing a window, but then a table downstairs meant an even longer wait so we decided against it. Besides, it was the first warm and dry evening of the summer and I wouldn’t have liked sitting in the dark basement.

We ordered different meats to share: Pulled Pork, Beef Brisket, Pork Ribs – all served with house pickles and grilled sourdough bread. On the side, we ordered Burnt End Mash, Baked Beans, Chipotle Slaw and Deep-fried Shiitake Mushrooms.

Cooked for 12 hours, the melt-in-your-mouth pulled pork was unanimously voted the best dish, but everything else was also incredibly tender, juicy and perfectly grilled.

You will struggle to find a food critic or blogger that has not yet spoken about Pitt Cue Co. My favourite write-up is by Grade Dent, who managed to write an enthusiastic review while at the same time comparing Pitt Cue to a Venezuelan prison!

Her colourful descriptions and the promise of leaving the restaurant covered in BBQ sauce made me want to go there even more!

The average Pitt Cue diner when I visited was mid-twenties, male and part of a group deliciously lost in a carnivorous ‘Um, meat, drippy sauce, ribbbbbs, taste GUD!’-type man trance [...] I ate my sausage in a sweet brioche bun with a side of bone-marrow mash and Cajun slaw, washed down with a woozy-making ‘hard lemonade’, while sitting crammed into an alcove with my head inches from a brick wall and one elbow in the pulled pork of a male stranger. [Grace Dent for ES Magazine]

For a top review of the meat, then head over to Burger Anarchy: these guys know all about BBQ meat, having recently been to one of the world’s best, Franklin’s in Texas (you can see a blurred Franklin’s T-shirt in the “Whatever” photo above!).

Despite the sense of Americana that the array of bourbon, PBR, and boilermakers might imbue, Pitt Cue isn’t really American. [...] If anything, it’s the Downton Abbey of BBQ – all the same ridiculous drama of Dallas, but anglicised and refined. Smoke and meat are the stars here, not sugar and gloopy sauces. [Simon & Rob for Burger Anarchy]

At the end, I still had some space to try the yummy Snickers Mess: a gooey feast of vanilla ice cream, meringue, chocolate, salted caramel, peanuts and a big putty-like brownie base [Adam Layton for Noshable].
Pitt Cue Co. was already a sensation last summer when selling ribs from a trailer pitched on the Southbank and is coming back on the wheels from June 8th, so don’t miss it!

Roast Sunday with Ben Spalding

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Do you remember when I blogged about Burger Monday last month? Daniel Young of Young & Foodish has just launched a new series of events called Roast Sunday. I managed to book a ticket for the first sitting and I am here now to share my photos and impressions with you!

The chef of Roast Sunday is Ben Spalding, former head chef of Roganic.

Ben has been working on different menus for the three events (May 20th, May 27th & June 10th), so each Roast Sunday is unique and worth trying!

“We will be using the very best meat in the country for Roast Sunday, I am going to be spending a lot of time sourcing the ingredients near my home in Kent, spending some time on the farms to ensure they know the exact quality I need for these events.” [Ben Spalding for Hot Dinners]

The pop-up lunch is held at Bea’s Diner in Druid Street, Bermondsey. Located inside an arch underneath the railway, the diner is a bare space with white walls and long tables with wooden benches.

As I arrived at Bea’s, I was greeted by Daniel who directed me towards the back, through the arch, past the kitchen and into Maltby Street. The street is gated and only open on Saturdays during the market hours, so on Sunday the street becomes a private courtyard, looking nice with the Jubilee bunting and God Save The Queen banner!

Around 12:30 we were invited in and shown our seats. I knew Little Miss Random from a previous event so I was happy to sit next to her and her boyfriend Toby.

Then it arrived: a Prime Rib of Angus Beef with Fern Carrots glazed in maple syrup & sesame seeds, Roast Potatoes in beef dripping, Buttered Pearl Barley, Minted Peas in salted butter, Creamed Spring Cabbage and a giant Yorkshire Pudding. On the side, beef gravy and wild horseradish sauce.

The beef, sourced from O’Shea’s Butchers, was rigorously served pink, as stated on the menu. 39 kilos of prime rib (off the bone) were consumed on the day!

An impromptu gravy-chugging competition took place during lunch! I can see how they used up 88 litres of gravy throughout the three sittings! ;)

As our empty plates disappeared in front of our eyes, big pots of Bramley Apple & Rhubarb Crumble appeared on the tables with a thick Cinnamon Cream to pour over. I loved the idea of leaving the puddings on the table for people to share!

As I was finishing the dessert, more people started to arrive for the 2pm sitting, so I didn’t indulge too long in conversations and left the table for the staff to clear up. I didn’t mind as I was on a very tight schedule that day: a few hours later I was at Discover Abruzzo Supperclub!

The new menu for Roast Sunday on June 10th is out! Book you ticket fast!