The Great Coffee Experiment

I decided to experiment. The goal of this experiment was to 

1) Try my hand at making homemade coffee creamer

2) Attempt to find out if cold-brewed coffee works for iced coffee

I started with the coffee creamer.

Following the recipe found on Mrs Happy Homemaker, I mixed one 14oz can of sweetened condensed milk with 1 and 3/4 cups whole milk:

Then I added 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract, mixed it up again, and then poured it into an old (cleaned!) coffee creamer container.

That was clearly a lot of work (and *so* expensive at $3.66 for the whole bottle), so I took a break and went to get a sno cone at the only place one should get sno cones: Jerry's Sno Cones!

Then I went back home and got to work on my cold-brewed coffee.

I used my favorite roast from my favorite (and local!) coffee company, J. Brooks Coffee.

And yes, I have to mark my bag so people don't steal it. It's that good.

I followed a ratio of 50:50 grounds to water.

Mixed it together.

It looked kinda' gross at this point, so I covered it and went to bed.

In the morning, for a breakfast of Super Coffee Drinkers: Caffeinated Avengers Assemble!

(I know. That's a lame joke. It was early and I thought it was funny.)

Take a gander at those grounds now - they're almost pretty!

Now pour those grounds into a french press, I had to use a spatula to get them all in. I would have preferred to do the entire experiment in the french press, but I'm not the only one who uses it. Sigh.

Press the grounds down and then pour the coffee into a glass with ice.

And, behold, Iced Coffee!

But wait, where's the creamer?! Gotta have it, y'all.

Now stir it up and lookee-there! Woo-hoo!

But does it survive the taste test?

Well......yeah. Yeah it does!

NOW. 

Here's what I learned about what I did right, and what I did wrong. (I've gleaned all of my coffee terminology and knowledge from the super cool guys at J. Brooks Coffee. You should check 'em out!)

1) I learned that the roast level and the grind I chose was too light and too fine for cold-brewed (though not necessarily iced coffee.) I chose a medium roast and I should have chosen a dark, I got a fine ground and I should have gotten a course. The reason behind that is that as the coffee beans are roasted darker, the sugars in them caramelize, producing a better flavor for cold-brewed coffee. The finer ground leaves more surface area for flavor to be pulled from which results in a stronger coffee than I might have wanted. (The medium roast is fine if you're brewing hot coffee with which to chill and then make iced coffee, however.)

2) I let the coffee steep waaaay to long. It was recommended to me that, due to the finer grind, I should probably only let it steep for 10 hours, 12 at the most. Well, I might possibly have stayed up super duper late and therefore slept in really late and my coffee, poor thing, might have steeped for 15 hours. Oops. This produced a super strong, and very bitter coffee. But "behind" the bitterness was an absolutely incredible flavor that I, obviously, really enjoyed. So next time I will be steeping the coffee for the recommended time to see if that alleviates the bitterness. If not, I'll try a different roast. 

3) The coffee creamer was so totally awesome! I'm so glad I tried it. Especially because I can make it any flavor I want and it's cheap! And I know exactly what I'm putting in my body. So cool.

So all in all, The Great Coffee Experiment was a success and I will be repeating it often. Huzzah!

Don't Fail the Family

Let me tell you a story.

It began when my father was a little boy, when he was still catching frogs and playing well into the Summer nights. His mother was given a recipe by a girl at work, a recipe that has since become a Very Big Deal. The recipe called for apples, it called for cinnamon, it called for sugar, and it called for a cup-and-a-half of oil. Egad.

When she mixed all of the ingredients together and baked them, it created a crumbly creation that has won over even the meanest of critics. Granny brought the cake out on special occasions, and it was always devoured. I can remember waking up to the smell of the cake in the oven, a warm scent that is forever stamped into my mind as a smell that belongs solely to her.

I love this cake. It is so valued that we keep the crumbs from the cake at Christmas in a bottle in the freezer to put on ice cream over the summer.

I would beg for the recipe, and every time she would find some way to distract me. Not on purpose, perhaps, but somehow that recipe never saw the light of day around me. Until this past Christmas, that is.

She pulled out her recipe box, “I don't even use these anymore; they're all in my head now. Here, I want you to have this.” Wide-eyed, I accepted the worn piece of paper. It had ingredients whited out, “I didn't like some of the stuff it called for, my recipe’s better.” And it had notes added in, “Just so you know what you're doing, until you learn it.”

I had it. The Apple Cake recipe was finally mine.

I framed it and hung it on my wall as soon as we got home from Christmas vacation. And I kept looking at it, thinking that I should try it, just to see if I could work the same magic that Granny can. But I never seemed to have the time or ingredients, so it hung there for months. Until yesterday.

Our neighbor rolled over in his electric wheelchair and gave us a huge bag of Red Delicious apples. The gesture was appreciated, but sadly, no one in my family likes those soft apples – we're a Jazz or Fuji family.

So I pulled my hair back and got to work.

A little of this. A little of that.

And a whole lot of that.

I put it into a well-greased bunt pan, because I don't own a tube pan like the recipe calls for.

And I let it bake, for a whole hour. Then it cooled for a half hour in its pan. I turned it over to cool on a rack. At that point it was midnight, so I called a friend to tell her happy birthday. Then I went to bed. (OK, fine. I snuck a few crumbs at that point.)

This evening, we went to my other grandmother's house for supper. I brought the un-tasted cake (except for those few crumbs.) We ate a beautiful meal of BBQ and roasted potatoes, then I brought out the cake.

My father had the first piece. I waited, holding my breath. “I am an Apple Cake connoisseur. I've been eating this cake since I was a little boy. That is an Apple Cake among Apple Cakes. Your Granny would be proud.”

Relieved I hadn't failed the family, I plopped myself down and ate a huge slice myself. And you know what? It really was amazing.

(I would share the recipe, but I think Granny would drive the hours it takes to get here and bop me on the head with her rolling pin. And if there's one lady I'm afraid of, it's my Granny.)

♥ sHe