Unfortunately, it was as delightful as you’d expect. The half-melted chocolate and coffee-soaked biscuit are an improvement over dry Twix.

I had already dunked and devoured both bars before thinking of this, but I wonder if it is possible to suck up the coffee through the biscuit after biting off both ends.

This would resemble the Tim Tam Slam, which is something I have always wanted to try, but Tim Tams seem to only be available in Australia. Anyone out there know of a way to procure a Tim Tam here in Ontario? Please tell me, and I will both love you forever and give you credit for what would surely be an embarrassingly messy post.

Update Aug 5th: I found Tim Tams (at Loblaw, go figure)! How come you guys never told me how good these are? Stay tuned; I’ll try them with coffee if I don’t eat them all on their own first.

I stumbled on your blog, and wanted to tell you about a tradition in my family. I’m from rural eastern North Car0lina, and my family has been having “cheese in coffee” as a treat as long as I can remember. It should be hoop cheese, or “rat” cheese — a medium cheddar that is NEVER refrigerated, and has either a red or black rind. Cut the cheese into large-ish chunks, pour very strong, very hot, very fresh coffee over it in a big, deep cup. Let it steep while you toast two pieces of bread. Once the bread is toasted, fish the cheese out in wonderfully warm, soft globs and eat them off the toasted bread. Then you dump out the coffee — it’s done its part by melting and flavoring the cheese.

Well I didn’t have any rat cheese around, but I did have some regular cheddar that’s about to go moldy.

I should’ve cut off a bigger chunk, because half of it seemed to go missing after mingling with the coffee. I only managed to scoop out a little smear to put on my bread.

It tastes great on the bread. The coffee added just a bit beyond melting cheese directly on bread, and it wasn’t as soggy as I feared it may be.

Of course I didn’t waste good coffee by harvesting its goo and tossing it aside like a cheap male escort. It had taken on an aesthetically pleasing bubbled look. HEY I DIDN’T THINK THIS WAS SWISS CHEESE LOL.

At first it was fine. I didn’t notice much difference in taste except for a bit of oiliness. But then that missing cheese came back, in the form of fuzzy bits gradually appearing in the coffee.

The weird part was, even when the coffee had been sitting perfectly still for a few minutes, the fuzzy bits danced and swayed in the coffee’s convection current. It was actually quite lovely.

Here, I’ll show you. I present the very first PWTIC movie. Please hold your applause until after the film has concluded.

But while it was lovely to look at, I was less inclined to continue putting self-locomotive fuzzy things into my mouth.

Stay tuned for CHEESE WEEK’s exciting conclusion.

As the ancient Chinese proverb goes, “if you blog it, they will come.”

The finest purveyors of bread cheese on this continent seems to be Carr Valley, based in Wisconsin. Monica Wright, a Minneapolis reporter, read my post and got in touch with me. Minnesota happens to be close to Wisconsin, and being pretty much the awesomest person in the world, Monica offered to send me some Carr Valley cheese for testing.

You can read Monica’s scoop over on Hot Dish, featuring an interview with yours truly (warning: contains Cheese Week spoilers). Keep reading for a more detailed analysis of the experiment.

Well, this is the first cheese I’ve seen that actually recommends dipping it in coffee right on the package.

The cheese took two weeks to arrive. There was a chance that after two weeks in an unrefrigerated truck, it could have gone nasty. Only one way to find out, though.

The brown spots are supposed to be there, and there were no other visible deformities, so that’s a good sign. I sliced a good sized finger of cheese, then poked it right into some nice hot, strong coffee.

Damn! This is good!

I’m not a cheese connoisseur, so I don’t have the pallet or vocabulary to fully describe this. It’s got the saltiness of feta, the “squeaky” texture of mozzarella, and just a hint of that pungent blue cheese taste. Dipping it in the coffee doesn’t melt it, but mellows it out, making it less crumbly, more rubbery. The coffee seems to soak in just a bit, adding an earthiness that wasn’t there in Carr Valley’s solo effort.

When the cheese was gone (far too quickly), the coffee was left with a bit of an oily film, but the taste was otherwise unaffected.

This has a lot of potential. Stay tuned for further experiments in the coming week.

[...] what about putting rice in your coffee?
Rice is sweet.
If you toast the uncooked form and put it in your coffee filter along with the coffee beans, its sweetness might go well with coffee.

Sounds logical. Plus, putting rice in green tea has long been a staple of ancient Japanese wise-men and all-you-can eat sushi joints. Why not in coffee?

I sprinkled some uncooked rice in a frying pan, added just a tiny bit of butter, and toasted it over medium heat, stirring constantly, about 10 minutes.

It filled the kitchen with a very pleasant toasty-sweet smell. Even if it ends up tasting like burned garbage, this technique will be useful for making the place smell good when guests come over.

I tried it black first. Now see, the thing is, coffee is already just toasted beans. So it’s a bit hard to distinguish the toasted rice flavour from the toasted bean flavour. However, it did seem to have a stronger, darker taste than it should have, and there was just a hint of a that ricey sweetness.

To enhance that sweetness, I added some brown sugar. Brown, because the rice was brown, so uh, that made sense somehow. The taste is still subtle, but there’s something different going on there, and it’s not bad.

But to hell with subtlety. Let’s see what happens when we just dump the rice directly in the coffee.

As soon as I added the coffee, that smell came back with a vengeance. Nice.

Some of the rice floats on top, so you get a few grains in each sip. Thus, that toasted rice taste is right in your face now. It absorbed the coffee, so it’s softer than uncooked rice, but the toasting leaves it with a bit of crunch.

This is actually quite good. When you can get over the weirdness of sipping down solid bits (as with the Chia Pet Coffee), it’s got a pretty cool texture, and a very rich, dark, smokey taste. If that sounds good, I fully recommend giving this a try.

P.S. This is PWTIC’s 30th post! It also just passed its one year anniversary! Yay! I don’t think I’ve even mentioned it before, but there is a PWTIC store with some sweet-ass mugs and other stuff. I know they’re overpriced, but if you like the site, consider it a donation that nets you a free mug. Then maybe one day I can afford a real camera (ok, or a new iPhone, which has a pretty good camera).

P.P.S. Next week is Cheese Week! It’s like Shark Week, except with cheese instead of sharks, and coffee instead of the ocean. Stay tuned.

Her suggestion? Smoked paprika coffee, sweetened with maple syrup.

This is no regular paprika. The smokiness hit my nose as soon as I opened it, and trying a bit on my tongue, it was quite spicy.

I put just a bit in the grounds; maybe half a teaspoon or less¹.

I mixed it up a bit, then brewed the coffee. I took a few sips of the coffee black. It was quite good; the smokiness definitely came through and went well with coffee’s natural earthy flavour. The spice was also prominent, coming across like a milder version of my successful Curry Coffee.

But I wanted to take all of V’s advice, in addition to taking the spicy coffee idea in a new direction. So out came the maple syrup.

The real stuff, obvi.

I put about two tablespoons of syrup, along with some cream ². Then, to top it off and make it look fancy-like, some whipped cream and another pinch of paprika.

Well now, this is not bad at all. Having the paprika right on top made the smokiness really hit my nose as I sipped. The maple syrup is subtle, but it sweetens without detracting from the drink’s earthy theme. With the other flavours competing for attention, the spice comes through mostly as an aftertaste, providing an unusual little kick.

I’ll definitely try variations on this again. Apparently there is a sweet (vs. hot) version of the smoked paprika that may go better here. I’d also add a bit more maple syrup next time. However, I’m going to label this as a big success. I’d pay good money for it in a coffee shop. Hey Starbucks: hire me.

 
 
 
Note: If you’d like to try this yourself, the smoked paprika may be hard to find. You’re probably better off searching independent / specialty food stores than grocery stores (it’s called La Chinata if you want to ask for it by name). I got it at Jill’s Table here in London Ontario.

¹ I actually freaked out and took a bit off after taking the picture. You don’t need much.

² OK, I know, it’s not a true latte without hot/steamed milk. But “double double with paprika” just didn’t have the same ring to it.

I shared the love on Metafilter a few days ago. So perhaps I have a voice in what you review next (heh)? I suggest mayonnaise and/or crumbled up Doritos in the grounds.

Indeed, the link from Metafilter is largely responsible for a lot of this blog’s recent success, so Taft deserves special attention. Mayonnaise it is!

Except I don’t have any mayonnaise around. I don’t even have its cheap and ugly little brother, Miracle Whip. Oh, but what have we here? PC Low Fat Whipped Dressing? I suppose that’s the next next best thing.

After my Eggspresso post, several people wrote in to suggest improvements. One that came up repeatedly was to whisk the egg into a little bit of coffee, then slowly add the rest, so it turns into a thick cream rather than a chunky mess. Since whipped dressing has egg in it, I thought I’d try this technique.

It seems to be working. There are a few floaty bits, but mostly it looks like coffee with a nice amount of cream.

I slowly whisk in a full mug. It’s looking good. Doesn’t smell too bad. Maybe this will be a surprise success. Bottoms up.

Oh. Oh my god. The moment it enters my mouth, I know that something has gone wrong. It’s sour; oh jesus, it’s like acid burning my tongue.

In the name of science, I take another sip. No yeah, this is the closest I’ve come to chugging vomit. Somehow it’s even worse than blue cheese dip.

I should have gone with the Doritos.

So it tickled my test tubes to see Kate (?) over at The Purpose of Time is to Prevent Everything From Happening at Once perform a double-blind-ish taste test replication of PWTIC’s Eggspresso experiment.

You’ll have to click to see the results.

She also gets bonus credit for using the word “proteinaceous.”