Review : Kenco Millicano "Dark Roast" and coffee flavoured iced biscuits!

I think it is well documented on this blog, how interested all of us here are in coffee.  It all started with the incredible Aeropress filter coffee maker - a real Damascus moment with regard to coffee flavours.  Then, we got interested in Vietnamese coffee and wound up getting a coffee Phin, which makes a truly impressive single cup of excellent filter coffee.

Then, by a stroke of sheer bad luck, I began to react in a bad way to filter coffee.  IBS has no rules - if it decides you've had enough of enjoying something, then there's absolutely nothing you can do about it.  So for the last few months, I've been bereft of coffee.  Now that's not as critical for me as it might have been for many others, but I enjoy the occasional cup of Joe and I missed it.

You can imagine how torn I was then, when I was offered the chance to review Kenco's new Millicano "Dark Roast" instant coffee.

I eventually agreed to the review on the basis that son & heir loves a cup of instant every so often and he would be able to review the beverage side of the coffee for me.  Additionally, I thought I would make some coffee flavoured biscuits, to review the use of Millicano "Dark Roast" as a coffee flavour in baking.

However, as it turned out, the warm heady aroma of the Millicano instant coffee was so tempting, I decided to take a chance and have a small cup of extremely weak coffee.  Well that worked most deliciously and without any payback, so I've been steadily increasing the amount of granules I use in each cupful.  So far, I'm up to an entire teaspoonful without any repercussions.  So far so good - and coffee!  Yay!

All of which is terrific news, because if I can't drink filter coffee - this Millicano is about the next best thing!  The flavour is everything that corny coffee adverts of old wittered on about, being dark, smokey, rich and satisfying (unlike the corny old coffees of old!).  I think everyone in the family has had a try of the Millicano, with thumbs up all round.  This is one product that is going to continue to appear beside our kettle for quite some time to come.

Having sampled the coffee as a drink, I felt sure that it would do really well as a flavouring in baking.  Now we love the flavour of coffee and it is very welcome in all its incarnations - from the coffee flavoured Revel, through Tiramisu, to a Coffee & Walnut cake.

However, one thing that doesn't turn up very often is a coffee flavoured biscuit.  There are the obvious Coffee Kisses, but they are a mutation between a cake and a biscuit, strictly speaking.  No, I was interested in making a biscuity biscuit.  One that snapped when you broke it and went admirably with a cup of coffee.  I also wanted to make the most of the coffee flavour, but the use of buttercream (as with the coffee kisses) was too cakey.  So I decided to make some coffee rippled, coffee iced, biscuits instead.

See the ripples? Looks like marble!

The idea of rippling the coffee flavour through the biscuit dough was relatively easy to bring about, as I mixed a percentage of the liquid coffee (I used 2 teaspoonfuls, dissolved into a tiny amount of warm water) into the dough, then used the remainder to lightly mix it through, which helped to create the heavier ripple marks.

Now don't go looking for the biscuit recipe, because I wasn't terribly impressed with the one I used.  However, although I've never tried it, the one from Ed Kimber at http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/fancy-iced-biscuits seems to address all the problems I encountered with my batch of biscuits.  You just need to substitute the coffee mixture for his lime zest and vanilla bean paste.

Where the icing is concerned, if you fancy coffee flavoured icing, just substitute the lemon juice for liquid coffee, made up to be heavy on the coffee and light on the liquid.

The very great joy with making iced biscuits, is going crazy with the sugar butterflies and edible glitter thereafter.  *wink*

Well, I can safely say that Kenco's Millicano "Dark Roast" thoroughly lived up to its billing when used as a flavouring.  The biscuits were deliciously nutty from the baking and the coffee flavour was right up there in the flavour spectrum.  The ripples were fun to create and very effective to eat, as the coffee flavour ebbed and flowed across your tongue most satisfactorily.

Because this coffee is so robustly flavoured, it is a fantastic one to use for icing.  Icing sugar can have the effect of wiping out a weaker flavour (which is why it, for example, works so well with lemon) - but the Millicano stood up to the flood of sweetness, holding its own most bravely and refusing to be bowed.

I wanted coffee flavoured biscuits - and that's certainly what I got.  Thumbs up, Kenco Millicano "Dark Roast"!

I have not been paid for this review, but simply received a sample of coffee to try, for which thanks go out to Katie of Golin.

Anzac biscuits - a terrific emergency biscuit recipe

You know, I'm sure hubby wasn't planning on making biscuits today.  Not as far as I was aware, anyway.  This morning we went and got the bulk of the week's food shopping in, then came home and hubby put the shopping away while I had a shower. Then, I discovered that he was busily making biscuits - Anzac biscuits, which turned out to be the scrummiest, most naughty thing! SO many calories per biscuit, but so yummy with their coconut and oats.

Do I hear you asking "what is an Anzac biscuit and why is it called so"?  Both of which are very good questions.

Well I first tripped over Anzac biscuits in a supermarket (can't remember which one) which was stocking packets of them around about Remembrance Sunday time.  A percentage of the proceeds were going to injured servicemen, as I recall.  Well, being soldier's daughter, I bought a couple of packets for the charity point of view, hoping they'd be nice.  They were more than nice, they're a fabulous accompaniment to a cup of coffee, or chai tea, or even builders' tea.  They're the old fashioned HobNob, made before HobNobs were even a twinkle in their creator's eye.

As for why they are called "Anzac Biscuits", well Anzac biscuits have long been associated with the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) which was established in World War I.  It has been claimed the biscuits were sent by wives to soldiers abroad because the ingredients do not spoil easily and the biscuits kept well during naval transportation. So you can see the Forces connection.

It must have been a wonderful moment to receive a parcel from home which contained a package of these wonderfully, munchy, crunchy biscuits.  A little bit of heaven in an awful lot of hell.

Now from a current perspective, the speed at which hubby brought the biscuits together and baked them - probably around half an hour at the most - makes them one of the most agreeable "spur of the moment" or "last minute, Mother's on her way" biscuits to make.  The end result is certainly worth more than the time they took to make!

So, if you fancy some baking or you're cooking with your kids, give them a history lesson while they are baking and make some Anzac biscuits.  Your next cup of tea will thank you.

ANZAC BISCUITS   (makes 20)

Ingredients :

85g porridge oats

85g desiccated coconut

100g plain flour

100g caster sugar

100g butter, plus extra butter for greasing

1 tbsp golden syrup

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Method :

1.  Combine all the dry ingredients except the bicarbonate of soda together in a bowl.

2.  Melt the butter in a decent sized pan (it needs room to expand) over a low heat.

3.  Add the golden syrup to the butter.

4.  Put the bicarbonate of soda into a small cup, add the boiling water and mix.

5.  Remove the butter mixture from the heat and allow to cool for 30 secs or so.

6.  Pour in the bicarbonate of soda mixture to the butter and watch it froth!

7.  Quickly mix all the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients before you lose the froth and stir well until completely mixed.

8.  Make a flattened disc out of a spoonful of the mixture and place onto a lined baking sheet.  Make sure to leave at least 1" between each disc.

9.  Bake in a preheated oven at 180degC/350degF/Gas 4 for 8-10 minutes, watching them like a hawk to make sure they don't burn.

10.  Put each biscuit on a cooling rack until absolutely cold.

Calories per portion (1 biscuit) : 118 (wince) - however, they do keep well in an airtight tin!  (Reference : Calorie Counter).