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Coffee Ice Cream & A New Perspective Where Art & Coffee Meet

August 7, 2013 by TheWhiteRamekins

Coffee Ice Cream 2

I love both coffee and tea equally. But generally, I try to avoid having both on a regular basis. But a coffee ice cream is something I can’t stop dreaming about. It’s my second favorite flavor after vanilla. I keep on trying with new flavors, when it comes to ice creams, but there is something beyond exquisite thing about your classic favorites, which make you keep going back to them.

Coffee Ice Cream 3

The easiest and the no churn coffee ice cream, I made somewhere last year was this Vietnamese Coffee Ice Cream. That had me into submission, totally. It was a genius of David Lebovitz. A true Perfect Scoop! Easily doable yet nonetheless fantastic! Next one I wanted to try his another custard based version, but I didn’t have any ice cream maker at home. And I kept myself satisfied with the no-churn one and forgot about the other.

Illy Coffee, Le Meridian

The other one was deeply buried somewhere down my brain, until recently, when my coffee experience got richer at one of the New Perspective series initiated by Le Meridien, New Delhi. It was when dark sensuous coffee met finer arts on a wet rainy afternoon. The weather couldn’t have been any better.

Illy Coffee, Le Meridian 1

It definitely called for a perfectly brewed sip of one of the finer creations of the Italian brew master Nicola Scognamiglio, who is also a barista trainer at Illy Coffee’s Asia Pacific division. It’s the art of brewing coffee, which the coffee expert teaches at the University Del Caffee. We got lucky enough to hear some of his great thoughts about brewing coffee and a deeper insight into the subject.

Coffee Ice Cream 4

The facts that, the milk should only be warmed up to 60 degree C, not scorching boiling, otherwise it will caramelize the sugar in milk and will give a different flavor to the coffee.  We tried three of Nicola’s wonderful creations. Marocchino Caldo, Espresso Greco and Cappuccino Freddo. Marocchino Caldo, espresso with hot thick chocolate, cocoa and milk, was the one which suited my taste buds. It basically reminded me of the coffee we used to have in old times, generously sprinkled with sweet cocoa.

Illy Coffee, Le Meridian 2

But this wasn’t enough for that afternoon. Artists Suddhasattva Basu’s artistic creations were yet to be experienced, while we sipped through some of the finest coffee concoctions.  His art represented the nature in form of  sacred garden, lotus leaves, flowers, aqua life, birds. Birds sitting on benches in garden almost made me feel, as if I can hear their sweet chirping. It was such a live art.

Coffee Ice Cream 1

An amazing blend of coffee and art really made my day and on the plus side my coffee love grew stronger. So much so, I ended up churning this coffee ice cream the very next day. Many thanks to Anasuya Basu and Meena Bhatia from Le Meridien for organizing this wonderful afternoon.

Coffee Ice Cream

Recipe minimally adapted from The Perfect Scoop

Yields: more than a pint

Ingredients

1 1/2 cup whole milk
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cup whole coffee beans
pinch of salt
1/4 cup mascarpone {at room temprature}, {click here for homemade recipe}
1 1/2 cup low fat cream
5 large egg yolks
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp finely ground coffee

Instructions

  1. Warm the milk, sugar, whole coffee beans, salt and 1/2 cup of cream in a medium saucepan. Once the mixture is warm, cover, remove from heat and let steep at room temperature for 1 hour.
  2. Rewarm the coffee-infused milk mixture. Pour the remaining 1 cup cream into a large bowl and set a mesh strainer on top.
  3. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks. Slowly pour the warm coffee mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly, then scrape the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan.
  4. Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat with a heatproof spatula, scraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula.. Strain the custard through a strainer and stir into the cream. Press on the coffee beans in the strainer to extract as much of the coffee flavor as possible, then discard the beans.
  5. Let the mixture cool for 30 minutes on room temperature. Mix in the vanilla, finely ground coffee and mascarpone, after the mixture is slightly cooled.
  6. Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator, then freeze it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Freeze in freezer, until ready to serve.

Filed Under: ice cream Tagged With: art, coffee, food, frozen, ice cream, illy coffee, le meridien, Mascarpone, the perfect scoop

Blogger’s Table @ The Piano Man Art Cafe, New Delhi

July 15, 2013 by TheWhiteRamekins

The Piano Man 8

An all vegetarian dinner too could be a Rockstar, which I got to believe few days back, when I visited this lovely cafe situated in Basant Lok market in New Delhi. The Piano Man Art Cafe serves a lot many mind blowing global dishes and you wouldn’t believe, if I say it just serves vegetarian food. Don’t think it is a spoiler. And I got to experience the vegetarian extravaganza with my happy and chatty bunch of bloggers from Blogger’s Table.

The Piano Man 10

And as the name suggests, it’s interiors reflect art all over. Walls are painted with some beautiful strokes of vibrant colors and are adorned with paintings and posters of various jazz musicians. One side of the cafe is all see-through glass, which gives a nice view of the market outside.

The Piano Man 9

I did not miss meat that night and that was really unbelievable. It started with smoothies. And we could chose from Chocolate & Hazelnut vs Paan smoothie. I didn’t want to load my stomach with chocolate in the beginning of the meal so I ordered for paan smoothie, keeping my fingers crossed. Thinking if paan could make or break the deal. And I was blown out. What flavors! You could chew on beetle leaves while sipping on to wonderfully fragrant smoothie…really light on stomach and delicious too.

The Piano Man

Pumpkin and peanut butter soup served with garlic toasty which followed next, was quite an interesting one, I must say. Both the flavors were quite prominent and were good enough to bring a smile easily on anyone’s face. A nice bowl of comfort food I must say.

The Piano Man 1

A crispy green apple and fennel salad was served right after the soup. Again a crowd winner! A very good balance of flavors and the perfect crunch!

The Piano Man 3

A big Mezze platter had everything I love about the mezze platter. Hummus was to die for and so were the fluffy pita breads!

The Piano Man 2

Vegetarian sliders with walnut and brown rice patty were so cute and adorable.

The Piano Man 4

Ratatouille was amazingly done having lots of peppers, zucchini and aubergines.

The Piano Man 5

Wild mushroom risotto was really flavorful and it had that perfect bite to it, I fell in love with it. Potato Dauphinoise was equally comforting and creamy.

The Piano Man 7

For dessert, we had tiramisu and dark chocolate caramel and sea salt tart. I did not like tiramisu that much, found it lacking some flavors. But I thoroughly enjoyed the chocolate and caramel tart. Sea salt speckled over gave the flavors an uplift, wonderfully done.

While we were enjoying these mind blowing vegetarian dishes one by one, a cellist and a magician kept the mood lighter and happier with their nice talent. And also, we got to hear some nice jazz from Arjun Sagar Gupta, who also runs the cafe.

The Piano Man 11

A decent place to hog on to some really wonderful vegetarian grub, you must give a try. And I can now at least vouch for the food that you sure would want to go back again. Apart from food, cafe also organizes various stand-up comedies and live jazz performances, which you could check out at their Facebook page.

Look what others have to say:

Parul from The Shirazine
Sangeeta from Banaras Ka Khaana
Ruchira from The Great Cookaroo
Sushmita from My Unfinished Life
Aishwarya from Aishwarya Eats
Mukta from Bake-a-mania
Rekha from My Tasty Curry
Rituparna from Chocolates & Dreams
Sid from Chef at Large
Charis from Culinary Storm

Filed Under: review Tagged With: art, basant lok, blogger's table, cafe, food, jazz, new delhi, restaurant, review, vasant vihar

Hi! I'm Himanshu - a home chef who loves to cook, bake, style and photo shoot... Read More…

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