Creating With Caffeine: 3 Ways To Incorporate Coffee Into Your Cooking

0
575
Incorporate Coffee Into Your Cooking

Coffee has well and truly cemented its place in our culture and lifestyle. Our morning cups of joe get us through every weekday, and comfort us on lazy weekend mornings. But how often do you use coffee beans as an ingredient in your cooking? Believe it or not, but there are actually a variety of ways that the beans in your home or office coffee machines can be used to enhance your cooking. 

Here are three quick and easy ways that you can incorporate coffee into your cooking. Follow these culinary tips so that you can enjoy all your favourite beans in brand new ways. 

3 Creative Ideas for Incorporating Coffee Into Your Cooking

1. Add coffee to savoury dishes as a rub for meats or as a marinade

Did you know that you can actually use coffee grounds to create a rub for meats? The coffee grounds will add a unique flavour to a range of meat cuts. The caffeine in your coffee grounds can also play a role in tenderising the meat, effectively aiding you in creating a softer, juicier, and even tastier steak. 

You can also use coffee to make a marinade for meats or vegetables. The acidity in the coffee will help to break down fibres in the food, making your meats and veggies more tender and flavorful. Similarly, coffee can also be used as a base for soups, sauces, and stews. The rich flavour of your coffee beans will be sure to add depth and complexity to any dish, providing your finished masterpiece with a complex flavour profile that’ll be sure to have your dinner guests coming back for seconds. 

2. Make coffee-infused desserts

There are actually many ways to incorporate coffee into your desserts. You can add coffee to cake batter, frosting, or even make a simple coffee syrup to top off your favourite desserts.

You can also use coffee grounds to create a unique flavour in baked goods and desserts like mousses or puddings. The coffee grounds will add a subtle bitterness that will complement the sweetness of most baked goods. Baked goods like cookies and cupcakes that are infused with a little coffee are also poised to complement pots of tea or coffee as well, providing you with a sweet snack to add to weekend brunch or your morning tea break. 

As for making coffee-infused desserts, there are an abundance of existing recipes that you could add coffee to, as well as a variety of traditional coffee cakes, slices, and other desserts that already incorporate hot or chilled coffee. One particularly timeless dessert that uses coffee is tiramisu, an Italian dessert that’s made of ladyfingers soaked in coffee. 

3. Turn your coffee into a spread or a jelly/jam

Finally, ground coffee can actually be used to produce a variety of different kinds of spreads, including butters, nut or chocolate spreads, as well as jams and jellies. All you need to start creating your own coffee-infused spreads is a cheesecloth for straining your coffee grounds, as well as whatever fixings you’d like to use for the rest of your spread’s base. These fixings could include heavy cream, fruit preserves for jams, or processed almonds, cashews, or hazelnuts for a quick and easy coffee nut butter. 

You can start nice and simple here by having a crack at a coffee butter recipe, which will allow you to consume your daily morning cup of joe right on your toast or crumpets rather than in a mug, for a nice change! 

Tips and Tricks for Buying and Using Coffee

When it comes to buying coffee, there are a few things you should keep in mind. First of all, always make sure to buy fresh coffee beans. Coffee beans sitting on the shelf for a while will not taste as good as fresh beans. Alongside this, you should aim to buy good quality coffee beans wherever possible. A higher quality bean will make a better-tasting cup of coffee, or perhaps a better tasting sweet or savoury coffee-infused dish!

Now that you have your coffee beans, it’s time to grind them. There’s a golden rule that must be followed when grinding coffee beans, and that’s to make sure that you don’t grind them too fine.  If your coffee beans are ground excessively, there’s a chance that the flavour compounds in your coffee will be over-extracted and thus, your coffee will taste bitter.

Once your beans are ground, it’s time to brew your coffee. There are many different ways to brew coffee, so you should feel encouraged to experiment until you find a method you like. Some people like to use a French press, while others prefer drip brewing.

Should Coffee Be Included in Your Daily Diet?

If you love coffee, you’ll be happy to know that you can actually incorporate it into your daily diet with little cause for concern! In fact, drinking or consuming coffee everyday can come with its fair share of health benefits, including boosting your daily intake of antioxidants. 

Here are a few easy ways that you can incorporate coffee into your daily diet:

  • Add a shot of espresso to your morning smoothie for an extra energy boost.
  • Stir some instant coffee into your oatmeal or yoghurt.
  • Make a savoury coffee rub for meat or tofu. Simply mix coffee grounds, salt, pepper, and any other spices you like.
  • Use cold brew coffee as the base for a salad dressing or marinade.
  • Add a bit of coffee to your chocolate chip cookie recipe for a unique flavour twist.

So, there you have it! A few ways to include coffee in your daily diet, alongside three novel ways to become a masterchef of coffee-infused dishes. Now go forth and caffeinate!

Must Read : Aphantasia As An Unusual Phenomenon