Holiday Grind

by Cleo Coyle

  cappuccino dry—Depending on the barista, a dry may mean a cappuccino with foam only or simply one with more foamed milk than steamed milk.

  cappuccino wet—A cappuccino with more steamed milk and less foam.

  caffe latte, latte—Mike’s drink. An espresso drink made with straight espresso and steamed milk (about one third espresso to two thirds steamed milk). In Italy, a latte will have only steamed milk. In America, baristas often top the drink with a bit of foamed milk. The basic thing to keep in mind here is that the latte has more milk than a cappuccino, so the strong espresso taste will be more diluted. The latte is the most popular drink in American espresso bars and is often flavored and sweetened with coffee syrups. (See the Coffee Syrups section.)

  microfoam—Latte nirvana. Microfoam refers to properly textured steamed milk. It is a thick, velvety potion of pourable microbubbles created by the expert use of an espresso machine steam wand. (See latte art.)

  latte art—An artistic design or pattern, such as a heart or rosette, created by a skillful pouring of steamed milk into your cup. You may think this is just a cutesy flourish, but major props are due to any barista who can master the steam-wand creation of pourable microfoam (a texture required to create latte art). So if you are served a latte that features artwork floating on top, you can be assured of two things: Your latte milk has been properly prepared, and your barista rocks!

  breve—A term used to indicate that you’d like your drink made with half-and-half instead of milk, such as a latte breve or a cappuccino breve. mochaccino—A cappuccino with chocolate syrup added.

  caffe mocha—A caffe latte with chocolate syrup added.

  Fa-la-la-la Latte—A caffe latte that uses coffee syrups or flavorings that evoke memories of the holiday season, such as a Gingerbread Latte, Eggnog Latte, or Holiday Spice Latte. This term was my own invention for the purposes of this novel!

  café au lait—The French version of a caffe latte, made with equal parts hot milk and freshly brewed, darkly roasted coffee, usually French roast.

  caffe con leche—The Spanish version of caffe latte with equal parts scalded milk and a strong, freshly brewed coffee. Sugar is added according to taste.

  frappe—A cold, frothy coffee drink usually made from blending espresso, milk, crushed ice, and sugar or sweet syrups that can give the drink a variety of flavors.

  red eye—Mike’s drink when he’s on an all-night stakeout. A regular drip coffee with a shot of espresso dumped in. (I think of it as a much more sobering version of a boilermaker!)

  unleaded—A slang term for a decaffeinated coffee.

  half-caf—A cup of coffee that’s a 50/50 mixture of regular and decaffeinated.

  single-origin—A single-origin coffee is one that comes from a single region or farm, as opposed to a coffee “blend,” which is a coffee that is created by a roaster or retailer who combines beans from more than one coffee-growing region. Ethiopian Yirgacheffe, for example, is a single-origin coffee that comes from the Yirgacheffe region of the African country of Ethiopia. It is a single-origin coffee. A roaster may decide to combine the Ethiopian Yirgacheffe with a coffee from Colombia and one from Sumatra to create a “blend.”

  regular—In New York City, a regular is a cup of coffee brewed in a drip machine with milk and sugar added.

  steamer—This beverage has no espresso. It’s simply a cup of milk that’s steamed to warm the beverage and increase its volume. It can be flavored with whatever sweet syrups suit your fancy: hazelnut, caramel, orange, French vanilla, peppermint, toasted marshmallow, toffee nut, and so on. (See the Coffee Syrups section.)

  GUIDE TO ROASTING TERMS

  WHEN coffee beans arrive at a roaster, they are “green.” The roaster then decides what style of roast will best bring out that particular bean’s flavor. Here is a basic guide to the spectrum of roasts and the terms often applied to them. Some coffee roasters even mix together medium- and dark-roasted beans for a delightful combination of flavors.

  Light

  Cinnamon, New England, Half City

  Light to Medium

  American, City, Brown

  Medium to Dark

  Full City, Vienna (or Viennese), Velvet

  Darkest

  Espresso, French, Italian, Spanish

  TIPS FOR BEING YOUR OWN BARISTA

  HOW TO MAKE ESPRESSO WITHOUT A MACHINE

  See photos of this process at www.CoffeehouseMystery.com

  In On What Grounds and Murder Most Frothy, Clare uses a small stovetop Moka Express pot to make herself a strong jolt of espresso-style coffee. Because affordable home espresso machines (remember, I said affordable!) cannot reproduce the kind of pressure that a professional, restaurant-quality machine can, I also use a stovetop Moka pot to make my espresso-style coffee at home. (Note to purists: I said espresso-style! I fully realize there’s no crema!)

  The beautiful, eight-sided Moka Express pot is the same sort of inexpensive stovetop espresso maker that members of my Italian family have used for generations. The taste experience you’ll have with the stovetop pot is deliciously intense. Although not the same as a machine-made espresso (again, there won’t be any crema), the stovetop version produces a rich, satisfyingly bold jolt of java. This is also an excellent way to make strong shots of coffee if you’re planning to mix them with steamed or frothed milk and syrups to make caffe latte, café au lait, or cappuccino—or if you have a culinary recipe that calls for adding espresso.

  The traditional eight-sided Moka pots come in 1-, 3-, 6-, 9-, and 12-cup varieties. Note that a “cup” of stovetop espresso is not equal to a cup of regular drip coffee, which yields about 6 ounces of fluid. A “cup” of espresso made in a Moka pot will give you an intense little 2-ounce jolt (¼ of a measuring cup of fluid).

  The beans: As any chef will tell you when you begin a culinary endeavor, the end product reflects the quality of your ingredients. You can’t make a decent cup of espresso with bad beans. So buy good-quality beans freshly roasted, and grind them fresh with a home grinder if you have one.

  What beans? What roast? Espresso refers to the method of making the coffee and not the coffee itself. The dark “espresso roasts” are certainly a traditional way to go for that bold, dark, caramelized flavor with hints of bittersweet chocolate, and you’ll find them wherever a variety of coffees are sold. But you may find that a lighter roast is more enjoyable, giving you citrus, berry, or floral notes, depending on the coffee’s origin. Experiment with different types of coffees, blends, and roasts to see what flavors, bodies, and aromas appeal to your particular taste buds!

  The stovetop method: Using a stovetop espresso maker is fairly simple. After a few tries, you’ll get the hang of the timing, so don’t stress over a few trial-run mistakes.

  Step 1—Unscrew the top and bottom chambers. Remove the little basket (A) out of the bottom chamber and fill the bottom chamber with fresh, cold water. (Filtered is best.) You want to fill it just up to the base of the little steam valve (B). Don’t go over the valve.

  Step 2—Grind the beans finely. You want the consistency of fine sand. Don’t grind them too finely—you don’t want powder—or you’ll make the beans bitter. Conversely, do not use coffee that’s been preground for a drip maker. The grind should be finer than a drip grind. If you don’t have your own grinder, then look for a coffee that’s been preground especially for making espresso.

  Step 3—Measure the grinds loosely into your stovetop basket (A). For each cup, the measure is 1 to 3 level teaspoons of finely ground coffee—using the teaspoon from your measuring set. I use 2 level teaspoons per cup, which comes out to 6 level teaspoons total for a 3-cup Moka pot; 12 level teaspoons for a 6-cup pot, and so on. If you like your espresso milder, then add less coffee; if you like a stronger taste, add more. Don’t tamp the grounds in—just pile it up into a pyramid in the basket. NOTE: You should not try to make less coffee than the pot holds. If you have a 3-cup espresso pot, then you must make 3 cups every time—not 1 and not 5. If you hav
e a 6-cup maker, you must make 6 cups, and so on.

  Step 4—Tightly screw the upper pot down onto the lower one, making sure no coffee grounds are sitting on the rim to prevent a tight seal. Put the pot on the stove over low to medium heat. (If you make your espresso over heat that’s too high, you may overextract your espresso and turn it bitter. As with many things in life, you shouldn’t try to rush the process!)

  Step 5—The entire brewing cycle takes between three and six minutes, depending on the size of your pot. The water will heat up in the lower chamber, producing steam. Because steam occupies more space than water, it builds pressure and forces the hot water up through the puck of coffee grinds in your filter. You will hear your espresso gurgling up through the pot’s “fountain” (C) and into the upper chamber. When you hear the gurgling slow, watch for steam puffing out of the pot’s spout, then check the upper chamber. If it’s filled with coffee, then you’re finished! Remove from the heat and pour into prewarmed cups. (To prewarm my cup, I simply use hot tap water. Fill the cup; let sit a minute; discard the water; wipe dry; and you’re good to go!)

  HOW TO CREATE LATTE AND CAPPUCCINO FROTH WITHOUT AN ESPRESSO MACHINE STEAM WAND

  No, it is not the same as professional, coffeehouse-quality foamed milk, and I wouldn’t even try to pour latte art with it. For true microfoam nirvana, you should visit your local barista! To have some fun at home, however, my stovetop method allows you to create a rustic version of a coffeehouse cappuccino and latte in your own kitchen.

  If you’re looking for something higher-tech, you can now find machines designed solely to heat and froth your milk. Just type “automatic milk frother” into an Internet search or shopping engine, and you’ll get a variety of affordable models to begin considering. In the meantime, here’s a low-tech solution for creating foam at home!

  Step 1—Fill a medium-size saucepan aboutfull with water. Place the pan over high heat until the water begins to boil. Turn the heat down to medium and allow the water to simmer.

  Step 2—Select a heatproof mixing bowl from your cupboard that is large enough to sit on top of the saucepan. (You are creating a double boiler.) Make sure the simmering water beneath the bowl is not touching the bowl’s bottom. Pour fresh, cold milk into the bowl and allow it to warm over the boiling water for one minute, no longer! How much milk? Aboutcup per serving.

  Step 3—With an oven mitt on one hand to hold the hot bowl and a handheld electric mixer in the other, tip the bowl enough to tilt all of the milk into one deep, concentrated pool and then whip it. (Whip it good! Use the fastest speed available on your mixer and simply hold the mixing beaters in the center of the milk pool—do not move the mixer around.) In a matter of seconds, you’ll see the warmed white fluid froth up. Whip the milk 20-90 seconds, depending on how much foam you’d like to create, and you’re done! Do not over whip the milk. You won’t be able to foam up every molecule of milk with this method, and if you whip it too much, you’ll just begin breaking down the foam you’ve created.

  Troubleshooting: To make this rustic frothing method foolproof, keep these four suggestions in mind. (1) Never try to re-froth milk that’s been whipped and has fallen. It won’t work. You must always start with cold, fresh, undisturbed milk. Pour it straight from the fridge to your measuring cup to the bowl. That’s it. (2) Don’t try to start whipping at a low speed and increase it. Whip it like crazy from the start, using the highest speed possible on your blender—if there’s not enough immediate, vigorous whipping action, the milk won’t properly foam up. (3) If you want to infuse spices or flavorings into your latte or cappuccino, then stir them into your hot espresso shot. Do not add syrups, flavorings, or ground spices into the milk before trying to froth it. (4) Finally, do not allow the milk to warm much longer than a few minutes over the boiling water. Steaming milk properly brings out its sweetness. If the milk is overheated, however, your latte will have a terrible scorched taste instead of a sweet one. That’s why my rustic frothing method is done double boiler style instead of in a pan sitting directly on the stove burner. It’s the best way to control the heat and prevent your milk from scorching.

  MAKING A RUSTIC CAPPUCCINO

  For one serving, start withcup of cold, fresh milk. Follow my directions for frothing the milk. After 60-90 seconds of whipping, when much of the milk in the mixing bowl has grown into a thick cloud of rustic foam dense enough to scoop with a spoon, you’re ready to create your cappuccino.

  Step 1—Pour 1-2 shots of hot espresso (1 shot = 2 tablespoons) into an 8-ounce mug. The number of shots depends on how strong a coffee flavor you’d like in your drink.

  Step 2—Stir in 1-2 teaspoons sugar, if desired. Or, if you’d like a flavored cappuccino, this is the time to stir in syrups or other flavorings.

  Step 3—Carefully tip the mixing bowl and allow a bit of the steamed milk fluid to pour into the espresso. (Use a spoon to hold back the gobs of foam as you pour.) Finally, spoon the remaining thick foam into your mug—or as much as you can fit!

  MAKING A RUSTIC LATTE

  A latte is similar to a cappuccino. The difference is in the amount of foam—a cappuccino has much more foamed milk than a latte. For one serving of a latte, start with 2/3 cup of cold, fresh milk, right from the fridge. Follow my directions for frothing the milk. Do not whip the milk more than 20- 30 seconds. At that point, about half of the milk in the bowl should still be fluid and half foamy. Now you’re ready to make your latte. Simply follow the directions for my Basic Caffe Latte recipe on page 311.

  Note on type of milk: In Italy, the use of full-fat whole milk is the standard. If you order a cappuccino with skim milk, they’ll look at you like you’re crazy. Why? La dolce vita—“the sweet life”—is the philosophy. It means you should savor the joy of living. If you’re going to have a cappuccino, have it with the better-tasting milk and drink with joy. If you want to limit the fat and calories in your drink, however, by all means use 1% or skim milk for most of the recipes in this book.

  COFFEE DRINK RECIPES

  Espresso Variations

  In Italy, ending a meal with a freshly made demitasse of espresso is not only common, it’s also thought to aid digestion of the meal. Here are some ideas for serving espresso as an after-dinner experience in your home.

  ESPRESSO ROMANO “SWEET”

  “Sweet” is my own term for this way of serving espresso that I’ve seen in some Italian-American homes. Rub the edge of your cup with a lemon wedge, then dip the dampened edge in sugar and sip the espresso through the sweet, lemony rim.

  ESPRESSO WITH CANDIED ORANGE PEEL

  Simply serve the espresso with the candied citrus peel on the side of the demitasse saucer. See my recipe on page 364 for instructions on how to make your own candied orange, lemon, or grapefruit peels.

  ESPRESSO AMERICANO

  Pour 1 shot of hot espresso into an 8-ounce mug. Fill the rest of the mug with hot water.

  ESPRESSO WITH SAMBUCA

  Serve the demitasse of espresso with a shot of Sambuca on the side. Sambuca is an Italian liqueur with an anise flavor—and Italians believe that anise aids digestion after a meal. Traditionally it is served in a shot glass with roasted coffee beans floating on top. The beans can be ignored as ornamental, or you can chew them to increase the anise flavor of the liqueur. Three coffee beans is traditional good luck, standing for health, happiness, and prosperity. So when you serve your guests, count accordingly!

  CAFFE CORRETTO (“CORRECTED COFFEE”)

  Add ½ teaspoon of brandy or grappa (Italian brandy) to 1 shot of hot espresso.

  ESPRESSO AMARETTO

  Add 1 teaspoon of amaretto to 1 shot of hot espresso. Especially delicious served with Dante’s Christmas Fruitcake Cookies and Mike Quinn’s Cherry Cordial Fudge. (See recipes for these goodies and more in the following section.)

  ESPRESSO ANISETTE

  Add 1 teaspoon of anisette liquor to 1 shot of hot espresso. Serve with a lemon twist.

  ESPRESSO KAHLUA

  Add
1 teaspoon of Kahlua to 1 shot of hot espresso. Top with a bit of milk foam.

  ESPRESSO WHISKEY

  Add ½ teaspoon of Irish whiskey to 1 shot of hot espresso. Top with a bit of whipped cream.

  ESPRESSO RUM

  Add 1 teaspoon of dark rum to 1 shot of hot espresso. Top with whipped cream and a dash of ground cinnamon.

  ESPRESSO COCONUT RUM

  Add 1 teaspoon of Malibu rum to 1 shot of hot espresso. Malibu rum is made in Barbados with natural coconut extract. Top with a bit of whipped cream and a garnish of lightly toasted flaked coconut. A spirited accompaniment to Clare’s “Bar-ista” Special Macaroons. (See recipe on page 339.)

  COFFEE SYRUPS

  FLAVORED syrups date back to antiquity, when honey was used as a preservative for fresh fruit juices so that flavored drinks could be enjoyed all year long. As time went on, syrups evolved into flavors such as mint, orange, lemon, and almond and became a popular way to mix a refreshing drink. These days in Europe, flavored syrups are added to sparkling water to make classic “Italian sodas,” while in North America, they are more commonly found as a way to flavor a coffeehouse latte or cappuccino.

  The flavored latte revolution is actually a very recent one. As the story goes, a coffee industry veteran named “Brandy” Brandenburger noticed bottles of Torani brand syrup behind a counter in San Francisco’s Caffe Trieste. These bottles were being used to create Italian sodas, but Brandy decided to bring home a bottle and experiment with espresso and steamed milk, and voila! The first flavored caffe latte was born! By the 1990s, adding syrups to espressos, lattes, and cappuccinos was an idea that had spread across the United States.