Chocolate Meets Espresso for Heavenly Indulgence

Posted on October 15, 2013 by Sara Walker

It happens to all of us. That moment when we just know we need chocolate, or coffee, or both. Sometimes it’s after a hectic meeting on a Monday morning. Sometimes it’s to start off the weekend with a kick on a Friday afternoon, and sometimes it’s because we are faced with a problem that’s so paramount that without chocolate and coffee we just can’t handle it. Coffee and chocolate can be life savers. Especially when combined. Of course they can be enjoyed just for the sake of enjoying them as well. They are, after all, deliciously indulgent.

In the below recipe you will find espresso and coffee combined. Divine. Heavenly. And flourless, so that means it’s almost healthy, right? Or not.

We found this recipe in the Huffington Post.

Fallen Mocha Soufflé

Ingredients

4 ounces semisweet chocolate
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 large eggs, separated
2 teaspoons instant espresso powder (you can also add 2 tblsp of Kahlua together with the espresso powder when combining the ingredients)
1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar

Directions

Preheat the oven to 450°F. Butter and sugar a 4-cup soufflé dish or deep 1-quart baking dish (3 to 4 inches deep).
In a small saucepan, combine the chocolate and butter, and stir over low heat until melted. Remove from the heat and whisk in the egg yolks. Pour the mixture into a large bowl and stir in the espresso powder.
In a large bowl, beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar until stiff peaks form.
Stir one-third of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture. With a spatula, gently but thoroughly fold in the remaining egg whites. Scrape the soufflé into the dish. Place the dish in a larger baking dish or a small roasting pan and fill with hot water to come halfway up the sides of the mold.
Place in the oven, reduce the temperature to 400°F, and bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until puffed and beginning to crack around the edges.
Remove from the oven and the water bath and set on a rack to cool. As it cools, the soufflé will collapse. Unmold carefully and invert onto a serving plate. Serve warm or chilled.

You can of course serve this recipe with a nice cup of coffee and you can get the coffee beans from us. And all other great coffee ingredients you could possibly need for future endeavors in the kitchen.

Homemade hazelnut syrup for coffee

Posted on October 10, 2013 by Sara Walker

It’s starting to feel autumnal out there, and what better way to warm up than with a cup of your favourite coffee, liberally laced with seasonal homemade hazelnut syrup? If you’ve got some syrup left over, it makes a great dessert sauce or cooking ingredient.

If you’re lucky enough to know someone with a hazelnut tree, this is the time to get on their right side! For this recipe, you’ll need a good double handful of hazelnuts, shelled.

Heat a heavy-bottomed frying pan on a medium-high heat, and add a double handful of hazelnuts (around 300 – 400g). Shake the pan occasionally so that the nuts toast evening and don’t burn. Continue until they’re a uniform pale golden colour, then remove the pan from the heat and leave to cool.

Once cool, put the nuts in a food processor and blitz until roughly chopped (don’t chop them too much, you’re aiming for whole nut pieces rather than a powder).

Put 500g of sugar and 500ml of water into a pan, and heat gently until the sugar is fully dissolved. Add the nuts, and bring the mixture to the boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer, and let it cook for around 45 minutes, stirring occasionally to make sure it’s not sticking.

In the meantime, sterilise a glass bottle or jar with a close fitting lid by placing into a pan of water and bringing to the boil. Strain the syrup into the bottle. Once completely cool and sealed, store in the refrigerator for up to a month.

If you like the idea of hazelnut syrup but don’t have time to make your own, we stock a full range of readymade coffee syrups, including hazelnut, for only £7.29 a litre. For more information, visit our coffee ingredients page.

This recipe was inspired by Homemade Hazelnut Syrup from www.fiveeurofood.com.

&lt;NOSCRIPT&gt;&lt;NOSCRIPT&gtIf yIf yo

Branding your coffee business

Posted on October 8, 2013 by Sara Walker

Whatever your feelings about the corporate might of coffee businesses such as the UK’s Costa Coffee and the USA’s Starbucks, their branding is a success. The green and white logo of Starbucks is instantly recognisable, and the chain now has nearly 17,000 locations. Costa may be a long way behind, with only around 1,700 locations, but its circular red and white logo featuring a trio of coffee beans is familiar across the UK. Costa may have started out in 1971 as a business supplying wholesale coffee to the catering industry, but it’s now best known for its retail sales, and has been branded accordingly.

By making sure that their logo appears on a wide range of merchandise and equipment, these companies are making a thorough job of building brand awareness. Starbucks’ logo appears on everything from mugs and coasters to staff uniforms and aprons, and Costa isn’t far behind. Both chains also have their own branded coffee, both for use in the shops and for retail.

If you have your own coffee business, then there’s more to it than just serving great coffee. While we’re not suggesting that you go as logo-crazy as the big chains, having your own branded bags of coffee beans makes good commercial sense. Branded bags are a particularly good idea if you sell retail coffee, as they often remain on a customer’s shelf in clear view as a reminder of your brand.

Here at the Wholesale Coffee Company, we sell a wide range of coffee beans and package them in different sizes. Our 1kg bags are great for use in your business, serving coffee to customers. Our smaller 500g and 250g sizes are perfect for retail. We’d love to discuss your requirements with you – just get in touch via our website, and find out how having your own branded coffee bags could work for your business.

Customised coffee packs as corporate merchandise

Posted on October 6, 2013 by Sara Walker

If you attend a lot of trade exhibitions, conferences or business meetings, you’ll already be familiar with the concept of corporate merchandise, gifts branded with logos and company details. Carrier bags, pens and mugs are the top favourites, as they’re inexpensive to produce and can be used everyday, theoretically keeping the brand at the front of the potential customer’s mind. These items, though, are often seen as disposable and thus don’t have a high value for the customer. Offer something that’s really seen as worth having, such as a bag of top quality coffee printed with your company logo or advertising slogan, and your customer is far more likely to remember you. An unusual gift such as this will also make you stand out from the crowd.

You don’t have to be a coffee company, café or even in the catering business to reap the benefit of offering gift bags of coffee, either – coffee beans are a universally acceptable gift, and can be used to advertise almost anything from a new business service to a cutting edge product.

At the Wholesale Coffee Company, we supply a great range of coffee beans, packed in customised bags printed with your own logo. The 250g bags are perfect for handing out as corporate gifts, and we also supply 500g and 1kg sizes, filled with top quality beans in strong, mellow, decaff or luxury blends.

Next time you have a trade stand at a business fair, why not have some 250g bags printed up with your company details , ready to hand out to interested customers – you can be sure that’s one corporate gift they’ll be taking home with them.

For more information about our customised bags service, and to see our range of beans, please visit our Customised Coffee Bags page under the Coffee Beans section.

Homemade vanilla syrup for your coffee

Posted on October 4, 2013 by Sara Walker

If you’re addicted to flavoured coffee, love an iced drink or just fancy trying something a bit different, then this homemade vanilla syrup is for you. In addition to adding it to coffee to make an indulgent drink, you can also use it in dessert sauces, poured over ice cream or as a cooking ingredient. It’s simple to make, and uses fresh vanilla for a rich, luxurious taste. Find fresh vanilla pods at some supermarkets, in delicatessens or online.

Ingredients

450g white granulated sugar
240ml water
one vanilla bean, split along the length and with the seeds scraped out
two teaspoons good quality vanilla extract

Put the sugar, water and vanilla into a heavy-based saucepan, and turn the hob to a medium heat. Stir with a wooden spoon until the sugar is completely melted, then bring the mixture to a boil. Remove the pan from the heat, being careful not to touch the contents which will be extremely hot. Let the pan sit for one to two hours then stir in the vanilla extract.

While the syrup is cooling and thickening, sterilise a small jam jar or glass bottle by boiling it in a large pan. Allow the jar to cool, then sieve the syrup to remove the vanilla pod and any pieces, and pour it in to the container. Once it’s completely cool, store in the refrigerator for up to three weeks.

To use the syrup, add a shot to hot coffee, or create an iced coffee by combining an espresso shot, milk, crushed ice and syrup to taste.

If you’d like to keep a bottle of vanilla syrup on stand by in your kitchen but don’t have time to make it yourself, then browse our range of top quality readymade syrups on the Coffee Ingredients page of our website. A one litre bottle of syrup is only £7.29, and we have a range of flavours to choose from including vanilla.

Free Coffee – a Great Incentive for Shop Owners

Posted on October 4, 2013 by Sara Walker

Ever been to Trader Joe’s in America? They play funky music in their shops, there are old vinyl records everywhere and their staff is friendlier than your dog. It may sound like they sell music, but what they are truly selling is food. Trader Joe’s is a sort of low key version of Whole Foods. If you have lived in America you probably miss Trader Joe’s as much as you’d miss mince pies if you left Britain. If you love mince pies.

The other thing with Trader Joe’s is that they always have free food samples and free coffee. That’s right, when you shop there a cup of Joe is on the house. Including milk, dairy free milk, and various sweeteners, such as stevia (you can’t even get that at Starbucks). The cups may not be large, but still, who can resist a free cup of Joe? Not I.

Coffee is often seen as a drink we go out to drink when meeting someone, or something we fuel our days with. Rarely do you see shops offering free coffee to all their clients, but maybe they should? Well, at least some, as it is a cheap incentive to make someone come into your shop. Just imagine: the whole shop will smell like coffee! Even better: grind your fresh roasted coffee beans on the premises (they do that at Trader Joe’s too) and it will simply smell divine!

Need some beans for your shop? Why not buy coffee online from us? We’d love to supply your business…after all that’s our business. Supplying coffee that is! 🙂

Coffee and Work Morale – Does Coffee Make Employees Happier?

Posted on October 2, 2013 by Sara Walker

It’s well known that most people who can afford it love to sneak out to get a cup of their favourite coffee during a long day at the office – to many coffee is the life saviour that makes work bearable during long, and/or stressful days.

As an employer you might not think twice about coffee – either your employees get their own whenever they can, maybe you have a filter coffee machine at the office. However, you may want to start bringing coffee to the office in a more elaborate way. Why? Because incentives and perks make people work better. If your staff is under the impression they are well looked after – if they receive good bonuses, great gifts, lots of encouragement and praise, chances are their performance will drastically increase together with their loyalty.

Studies have shown that what most people are looking for at work is not money alone – in fact just money as an incentive increases productivity a lot less than verbal praise, feeling valued by the employer and generally being well looked after. Whilst a high pay check is definitively something people will want, never underestimate the effect of good incentives.

So how does coffee come into this? Well, creating a great work environment might include upgrading that old coffee machine with a Nespresso, or espresso machine. It might also be a good idea to once a week get your staff some fancy take away coffee that is a proper treat. Even if you have an espresso machine in the office, chances are your employees won’t have time to make pumpkin spice lattes, or white mocha lattes.

Another bonus of using coffee as part of a great work environment is that studies have shown that productivity increases when people smell of coffee. To say that the aroma of coffee is welcome to most is therefore an understatement.

If you run an office and want to buy coffee online, we have plenty of options for you. You can even buy our green coffee beans and start roasting them in the office. That might be taking things to the extreme though. You can save time and money by buying coffee online though, whether from us or someone else. The important thing? Spoil your employees with a cup of Joe ever so often. Don’t believe it works? Ask anyone who shops at Trader Joe’s in America why they shop there. Free coffee.

Coffee Inspiration in the Cup

Posted on October 2, 2013 by Sara Walker

We went in search of more coffeisms, inspirational and funny coffee quotes and anything else coffe-esque. This is what we found:

I like big cups and I cannot lie. (Really depends on what coffee you put in them! Good quality coffee beans please.)

Coffee is not just a beverage. It’s a cup of liquid sanity. (We couldn’t agree more. If we wrote something weird, clearly we didn’t have enough coffee that day. Had a good day? Take credit. Had a bad day? Blame it on the coffee…or lack thereof.)

If you like coffee as much as we do, you probably had a giggle at these! And if you like coffee as much as we do you’d probably also want to buy coffee from us, right?! After all we sell some of the best coffee beans on the planet! Fresh roasted coffee beans, green coffee beans, ground coffee beans…coffee beans all round. As someone really clever said: Good coffee smells like freshly ground heaven. Amen.

Paleo Double Mocha Biscotti

Posted on October 2, 2013 by Sara Walker

In our last blog post we talked a little bit about coffee on the Paleo diet – most people allow it in small to moderate amounts, and we gave you a fabulous Pumpkin Spice Latte recipe. This time we are moving on to the treat to go with it – Double Mocha Biscotti. Once again they are Paleo and vegan if you use agave nectar rather than honey.

Now, all you need is some real good quality cacao and fresh roasted coffee beans for this recipe. As we are obsessed with beans, we have to state that it’s always better to get good quality coffee beans and cacao. It’s what’s separate gourmet food, from average food. Coffee beans being our passion we know what we are talking about. You may not know why if you’re not a coffee connoisseur, but the biscotti will taste better with good quality coffee beans. Guaranteed.

So we got a bit sidetracked with our coffee obsession, but now onto the amazing, fabulous, most certainly healthy biscotti (cacao, honey, almonds and coffee all have antioxidants and other nutrients that are good for you). We found the recipe at Elana’s Pantry. Enjoy guys!

2 ¼ cups blanched almond flour
¼ cup cacao powder
2 tablespoons arrowroot powder
1 tablespoon organic decaf coffee, espresso grind
¼ teaspoon celtic sea salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ cup agave nectar or honey
½ cup chocolate chunks

In a food processor, combine almond flour, cacao powder, arrowroot powder, ground coffee, salt and baking soda
Pulse until ingredients are well combined
Pulse in agave nectar until the dough forms a ball
Remove dough from food processor and work in dark chocolate with your hands
Form dough into 2 logs on a parchment paper lined baking sheet
Bake at 325° for 25 minutes, then remove from oven and cool for 1 hour
Cut the logs into ½ inch slices on the diagonal with a very sharp knife
Spread slices out on a baking sheet and bake at 300° for 12-15 minutes
Remove from oven and allow to cool, set, and become crispy
Serve

Makes about 14 biscotti

Paleo Coffee Treats

Posted on October 2, 2013 by Sara Walker

You’ve probably heard of the Paleo diet. Chances are if you are reading this you might be on the diet right now, or curious to try recipes from it. And therefore, you probably also know there will be no gluten, no refined sugars, and no dairy in the recipes. That doesn’t mean you don’t get treats, or coffee, even though strictly speaking, coffee isn’t part of the diet. For most people the important bit is health however and so long as coffee isn’t damaging your health, then it’s allowed, given you don’t so to speak over dose.

The Paleo diet is a lot about quality foods and sticking to what is natural. In other words: if you are to make a treat, or drink coffee, use the best quality options: organic, fairtrade and if decaffinated then use water processed coffee beans. And as always: fresh roasted coffee beans makes for the best cup. You don’t necessarily have to buy green coffee beans and roast them yourself, but if you have a grinder then it’s better to grind your own coffee! Or use Nespresso capsules!

Today we will share a Pumpkin Spice Latte Paleo recipe from Freckled Italian with you and our next blog will be Double Mocha Biscotti. Combined we figured they’d get you through the winter blues!

Pumpkin Spice Latte, the Paleo Way

Ingredients:

Makes at least two drinks.

5.46 (yep, that’s real) ounces of canned coconut milk

4 tablespoons of canned pumpkin (I just put the rest in a Tupperware)

1 tablespoon agave nectar

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon cloves, 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

A tiny dash of ginger

(Feel free to add more or less of something if you really love or hate one of these spices)

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

An ounce or two of regular unsweetened coconut milk (in a carton)

A shot or two of espresso or some strongly-brewed coffee

1. Open your tiny can of coconut milk. Put a spoon under the thick part and pour the liquid underneath into a bowl. That’s what you’re using for your latte. The thick part will be whipped cream later, so put it in a separate bowl.

2. Mix everything except for the coconut milk in the carton together in a bowl and stir them up.

3. Once all the spices are incorporated into the pumpkin, add a few splashes of coconut milk from a carton to the mixture until it seems more liquid than thick. Heat up on the stove while you make some espresso or strongly-brewed coffee.

4. Take the bowl with the thick portion of canned coconut milk and whisk it up with a bit more vanilla and agave.

5. Fill a mug halfway with coffee and add the pumpkin mixture from the stove. Stir it–this stuff separates. Don’t get freaked out.

6. Add a few dollops of the coconut cream and sprinkle a little cinnamon on top.