I still had some bread cheese left. I’d heard it’s good with brown sugar and cinnamon baked on. I had the brilliant idea of topping coffee with a layer of the cheese, topping that with cinnamon and sugar, broiling it in the oven, then having a lovely crust to sip the coffee through, giving it just a hint of the cheesey brilliance before finishing it off with a soon.

I soon realized that there was not a large enough slice of cheese left to cover the whole ramekin (yes that’s a real word; look it up), and it wouldn’t be much of a “crust” if it immediately sank to the bottom. Thus, I drafted up and implemented a complex cheese apparatus, with smaller bits of cheese acting as supports to keep the larger slice aloft.

Of course, now is when this cheese finally decides to get its melt on. It immediately collapsed to the bottom of the coffee.

Regardless of its structure, it smelled delicious. But, well, you put anything with cinnamon in an oven, and it’s going to smell great. Luckily, this lived up to its smell. I had to use a spoon, treating it more like soup than coffee, but oh what gooey goodness.

This reminded me a lot of French Onion soup, in texture and even in taste; it’s a bit less salty, more sweet, but it’s got that delightful soggy melted cheese flavour that the French refer to as merde fondu dans ma bouche.¹

People with less adventurous pallets would probably be turned off by this unusual combination of flavours. But when you think about it, coffee, cheese, and cinnamon all have an earthy quality to them. In fact, next time I do this, I’ll leave out the sugar and add some cognac, further emphasizing that this works better as a soup than a dessert coffee.

All of these bread cheese experiments have been successful. I give it my serious recommendation. If juustoleipa isn’t available where you live (as it isn’t here), I’m sure other cheeses could be substituted. Swiss, Gruyere or emmenthal could have similar results. And as we saw, cheddar has its place in coffee.

Thanks again to Monica Wright for the bread cheese and continual awesomeness. And thanks to you, Internet, for your incoming suggestions. Got more? Got enough for a whole other week of coffee experiments? Send them in.

¹ No they don’t.

It is only logical, then, to put the two together, and name it after cops. Here is copfee.

The first thing I tried was simply dipping a donut (sour cream glazed) in coffee. A curious thing happened: I held it there for a few seconds (to snap a picture), and when I tried pulling it out, it had disintegrated into mush, and a piece of the donut was breaking off, getting sucked into the coffee. It was like the coffee and donut wanted to become one, so they could be together forever.

It continued to liquify as I pulled it out.

The rest of the coffee had donut mush on top. It tasted kinda good once I got over the slimy texture. But surely there must be a better way to integrate these flavours.

I got myself more coffee and a vanilla dip with sprinkles, then went to work. By “went to work” I mean I put them in a blender.

I took the lid off, and immediately noticed the smell; it was like I’d walked into a donut shop. That smell of freshly baked bread and brewing coffee. It tastes much the same way. The main flavour that comes through is the breadiness of the donut, although the icing and sprinkles are hanging around too.

This is actually not bad. The baked dough taste is something I haven’t yet experienced in my coffee creations, and it works. I’d do this again, but maybe with a slightly higher icing to dough ratio.

There is a sludge at the bottom as usual, but not much of one, presumably due to the aforementioned donut-liquifying powers of coffee.

Copfee needs a bit of work before I can label it a success, but it’s close. And when I get there, expect to see me setting up a booth outside the local police station to fill cops’ cups. I’ll either be unimaginably successful or arrested for perpetuating cruel stereotypes.

Bacon was first placed into coffee.

Researcher proceeded to hold bacon up to light while laughing maniacally.

Bacon and coffee were then placed into Magic Bullet apparatus and blended for 10 seconds (or less). No cream was added. The mixture took on a creamy colour and texture. Repeat: no cream was added.

Researcher became nervous; began to exhibit signs of distress such as sweating and trembling hands.

Despite further blending, chunkage was apparent. Given previous encounters with chunks, researcher became visibly agitated. After several minutes of contemplation and pacing, he exclaimed “[expletive deleted], I’ve got it,” produced a coffee filter, and set up another apparatus.

Coffee was poured through (another) filter in order to remove chunks. Coffee had taken on thick texture and required manual squeezing in order to drain into mug. Researcher became covered in oily coffee.

Yield was small, but enough to gauge properties of coffee. Filtering was successful; no chunks were detected. The texture was, however, slimey. Taste was not terrible. Smokiness of bacon came through, as did saltiness. However, the researcher was left unsatisfied, expressing a desire for an idealized bacon coffee that he claimed to “have dreamed about nightly,” yet also added, “I will not rest until I find it.”

Further research is needed.

Footnote: The unfiltered, chunk-laden coffee was also attempted. Not recommended. Taste was similar to Cafe Benedict, except chewier.

Readers with strong stomachs may wish to observe the residue.

This research was funded by two generous organizations: Klix offers spiffy coffee vending kiosks, while Flavia offers smaller bean to cup coffee machines. Those certainly look better than vending machines where I’ve worked. The sludge that came out of those didn’t need weird things to taste weird.

Two follow-up experiments in combining bacon with coffee were conducted under careful laboratory conditions. Test #2 is presented below. Test #3 will follow in next week’s volume.

Bacon Coffee, Test #2:

No-Name brand SIMULATED BACON BITS CONTAINS NO MEAT were distributed over the coffee grounds. Coffee was then brewed as normal.

A surprising finding: after being soaked with water, the bacon bits resemble bacon more than they did before:

The primary finding was that SIMULATED BACON BITS CONTAINS NO MEAT did not contribute the desired amount of flavour. Even after sweetening with cream and honey, the coffee remained nearly unaffected, save for an unpleasant increase in saltiness. Researcher concluded that bacon bits in coffee were not even repugnant enough to be of significant interest.

Further tests are needed.

Apparently cassava looks like this:

Hmm. Not something I’d want to put near my tongue, but luckily it came all peeled and chopped up. Some Googling revealed that it’s a potato-like vegetable. Tapioca is made from processing it into flour. I also came across this tidbit:

Konzo is an epidemic paralytic disease. The outbreaks are associated with several weeks of almost exclusive consumption of insufficiently processed bitter cassava.

How can you resist a vegetable with its own paralytic disease?

As for how to prepare it, a friend on Twitter suggested this recipe for Vietnamese cassava cake. Hopefully making it into a cake would be “sufficient processing” to stave off the konzo.

The cake was … different. The cassava has a unique taste; kind of like potato, but with a bitter aftertaste that I attribute to the konzo-causing cyanide.

I couldn’t eat the whole thing though, so it was time to throw some in coffee.

I can definitely taste the cassava. That bitterness I mentioned seems to be accentuated by the coffee. However, this isn’t terrible. To be honest, I wasn’t a big fan of the cake, so this was a good excuse to plop some in coffee, take two sips, then toss it down the drain. Yet here I am, halfway through the mug, still drinking.

The caramel taste of the condensed milk is nice here (and would probably be great in coffee on its own). The texture is thicker than coffee, kinda powdery.

It’s getting even thicker as I get to the bottom. I can taste the poison bitterness more and more with each sip.

There’s a slight sludge at the bottom, but not enough to worry about. Bottoms up!

Oh god. Is that a tingling in my extremities?

In an interview in the “Talk of the Town” column of The New Yorker in 1942, the year before his death, Lemuel Benedict, a retired Wall Street stock broker, claimed that he had wandered into the Waldorf Hotel in 1894 and, hoping to find a cure for his morning hangover, ordered “buttered toast, poached eggs, crisp bacon and a hooker of hollandaise.” Oscar Tschirky, the famed maître d’hôtel, was so impressed with the dish that he put it on the breakfast and luncheon menus but substituted ham and a toasted English muffin for the bacon and toast.

While probably not the true origin, I like this story for several reasons:
1) LOL, “hooker.”
2) It acknowledges eggs Benedict’s proper place as hangover food.

We’ve all been there. Eleven o’clock on a Sunday, head throbbing, stomach churning but oddly hungry, at the closest cheap diner, with a big plate of deep fried potatoes, greasy bacon, and buttery buttery eggs Benedict. Oh, and coffee on the side.

Why not pare this hangover cure down to its core elements? Which are, of course, Hollandaise sauce and coffee.

I just so happen to have some lying around after making this masterpiece:

Oh look on top there, it’s smoked paprika making its second appearance on this blog! Hi smoked paprika!

Anyway, a day later, the sauce doesn’t look quite so smooth and creamy after reheating:

But I’m sure it will come around once it realizes it is meant to be with coffee.

Ok, maybe not.

It’ll need some convincing. I introduce it to the whisk, and that seems to chill it out a bit, save for an oily film on top and a few stray chunky bits. Plus, it feels oddly viscous, resisting every swirl of the whisk. Ah well, in with the rest of the coffee!

Looks pretty good. Nice colour (no cream required, since there’s already a lot in the sauce), and a mesmerizing texture on the surface.

I take a sip.

UNGH! Not good.

It’s thick. Like I’m drinking gravy. It’s so buttery that I feel like I gain a pound with each sip. I love butter as much as anyone (even in coffee), but this is too much slippery goodness. Also, it’s saltier than ocean water.

I’m getting involuntary shivers after taking a few sips.

This could help with a hangover, but only because it forces you to vomit. Stick with drowning eggs and English muffins in Hollondaise sauce; it is not friends with coffee.

Apparently Chia seeds are not only edible, but nutritious too.

The seeds come out as tiny dry pellets. Following the instructions for growing a Chia pet, I soaked them in water for about half an hour, after which they became a jelly-like mass.

Honestly, looking at it, this grossed me out more than a lot of other things I’ve tried here. Especially since the Chia pet they came with still haunts my nightmares.

But I had to try the stuff on its own before putting it in coffee (to make sure it follows the one rule). The gooey texture was a bit weird, and was followed by some crunchiness that reminded me of poppy seeds. The taste was slightly nutty with a hint of a fresh, citrusy flavour.

Definitely edible, so time to add it to coffee.

“Luckily,” the stuff floated instead of sinking to the bottom. It stayed as a solid mass at first, but with a little encouragement the seeds broke up and whatever chemical sludge holds them together dissolved into the coffee. Bottoms up.

You know, this is not as bad as I was fearing. Remember the drink Orbitz?

I’m reminded of that, or bubble tea. The solid bits add an odd sensation to each sip as they slip and slide down my throat, but don’t really affect the taste of the coffee. I feel some of them clinging onto and between my teeth, but hey, I was planning on flossing anyway.

All in all, I wouldn’t ch-ch-chow down on this every day, but it was a surprisingly enjoyable experiment.