A Grown up Love Story...or Viennese Coffee at Home (a book review and coffee recipe)

Adapted: The Art of the Brew: How To Make World Class Coffee at Home by Luca VincenzoLink: http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Brew-World-Class-ebook/dp/B007EE4AVA/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1330696550&sr=1-1

I am in love...not a fly by night love, but a deep, engrossing, take my breath away love...

Before I go deeper into that though, let me say that I have found some of the BEST little cookbooks for free on Amazon.com. These aren't your Paula Deen, Joy of Baking type of cookbooks, they are little cookbooks, usually specialized containing a small amount of recipes that, if I didn't grab them for free, would run me $3 tops. Part of my daily routine is to search ereaderiq.com( ereaderiq.com ) for free books. My goodreads account has a viscious "to be read" shelf and I would like to not have to purchase all of them. Plus, I have found a couple of new authors that way.

In going to ereaderiq.com everyday, I started to stumble across their cookbooks and slowly started to grab the ones that looked interesting and testing out the recipes and I have found some real winners and some not so..but, hey, the book was free!

Back to my love story...the other day, I was stumbling around ereaderiq and came across The Art of the Brew with its' luscious coffee cup in the picture making me start to salivate before I could even click on the button to take a further look. Now anyone who knows me, knows I am a coffee addict. I can't get enough of it. God help me if I ever had to give it up...it would be like cutting off an appendage.The second thing that people know about me is that I am cheap. If I can make it at home, I am making it at home and not paying restaurant/coffee house prices. So,  I downloaded the book so quick, I am surprised I didn't burn up my kindle. I then opened that bad boy the second it said "download complete" and started taking a look at it. I WAS AMAZED AT THIS LITTLE GEM I HAD JUST DOWNLOADED FOR FREE!! I felt like a little kid who just taken the last cookie from the cookie jar much to the dismay of her siblings!

I immediately took off into my kitchen to make a pot of coffee and try the recipes in the book...but I will get back to that.

One of the things that most fascinated me about this book was the "how to" component of the book and how well it was laid out. The author took time to detail different coffee beans and their origins, different machines, ways to have coffee style house coffee at home using easy at home instructions without the big coffee house, expensive machines...and I can't forget the recipes..30 of the most scrumptious sounding coffee recipes made easy peasy!

Again...lots of whipped cream for dramatic effect..
Plus, I really need to invest in some smaller, glass coffee cups!

So, one of the first ones I grabbed was Viennese Coffee. I happened to have a spare bag of semisweet chocolate chips from the Rocky Road Crock pot Cake I made the other day and I knew that would be a perfect use for them.

So, here we go:

Ingredients:

1 cup fresh brewed coffee
1 Tablespoon heavy whipping cream (this is the liquid stuff)
2 Tablespoons semisweet chocolate
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
Whipping cream (the aerosol stuff)

Directions: OK...I must state that I deviated from Luca's directions purely accidentally, but I was still really satisfied with the outcome.

Luca's Directions:

1) Pour coffee into mug.
2) Heat the cream and chocolate in a small pan over low heat stirring constantly. Once chocolate has melted, remove from heat and pour into coffee. Stir well and top with whipping cream and cinnamon.

Naomi's Directions based off her screw-up:

1) Place coffee into measuring cup and give it a tiny zap (it doesn't take long) to ensure it is hot...DON'T BURN YOUR COFFEE...yuck!


2) Place whipping cream, chocolate and cinnamon (I did this accidentally, however did it the original way without the cinnamon and both were AWESOME!)...it is up to you) into mug and microwave for a few seconds until the chocolate is melted.  Stir frequently..again..nothing burnt (yuk)


Before microwaving

With coffee added and stirred

3) Pour hot coffee over chocolate mixture and top with whipped cream  additional cinnamon.

Simply heaven...

Final note: I ended up trying 4 recipes out of this book and am working my way through. I still can't believe I downloaded this for free. The book is normally $2.99 on Kindle and worth every little cent of it (actually would have paid more if I knew everything that was in it)