You know that Sunday afternoon feeling? The one after a big lunch with friends and family where by three o’ clock everyone begins to feel full, sleepy and suffering a bad case of the Sunday blues? Well, here at Squiggles HQ, we have a wonderful (and super quick!) dessert recipe for you. It’s our take on the traditional Italian Affogato al Caffé dessert: the sharp, intense flavour of the espresso coffee combined with the light, fluffy texture of vanilla ice cream not only wakes up your guests in no time but also makes for a delicious summer lunch dessert.
All you need are two ingredients: a really good vanilla ice cream and espresso coffee.
For the coffee, we used Pact Coffee. Pact is a small independent company which makes coffee and delivers it to you, straight to your door. You can receive your coffee as you require depending on how much you consume per week and the lovely people at Pact either send you the coffee beans or even grind them for you (which is what we go for being lazy but come on, it’s a Sunday recipe!).
We thought we’d go for the Planalto coffee as it’s a Malt Milk Chocolate Shake which we thought would perfectly complement the vanilla flavour of the ice cream. We were certainly impressed as we decided to use this for our recipe (this post isn’t sponsored by the way, we are just talking about a company we feel passionately about especially as they pay above the fairtrade rate for their coffees!). Furthermore, as a small company ourselves, we like to take the time to try out and buy from other small companies whenever we can.
Once you have your espresso coffee and your ice cream, put your coffee on the stove top but no, don’t join the rest of your friends to take a nap – you, our friend, have to get working on the ice cream. Besides, the coffee will be ready in no time.
As the coffee bubbles away, take a little plate and one scoop of vanilla ice cream. Place the scoop in the middle of the plate and sprinkle some coffee powder on top – use almonds (or even coffee beans!) to decorate.
In the meantime, your coffee will have began to bubble and rise to the surface. Paying attention not to burn your hands, pour it in a tiny espresso cup and serve it alongside the vanilla ice cream. Now, Italian tradition would have it that the espresso is directly poured on top of the vanilla ice cream but we reckon our take is that little more fun as you can alternate between the the rich flavour of the warm coffee and the fresh taste of the ice cream. Similarly, by serving the coffee and ice cream separately, you would also be providing for guests who do not drink coffee.
And here you are: a fresh and quick summer time dessert. Use it to wow your guests during summer and tweet us a picture @squigglesblogs if you decide to make it.
The Squiggles Team
