First prepare the choux pastry: melt the butter in a thick-bottomed pan, together with the milk, water and salt, bringing to the boil. Add the flour, already sifted, all at once, stirring vigorously with a wooden spoon until a light film begins to settle on the bottom, at which point remove from the heat and leave to cool.
Once almost completely cold, add the eggs one at a time, waiting until the first is completely incorporated before adding the second, then transfer the choux pastry into a piping bag with a smooth, not too thin nozzle.
Create the cream puffs on the baking tray lined with baking paper, spaced well apart. Moisten a finger and use it to press the tip remaining on top of the cream puffs, so as to obtain puffy and roundcream puffs.
Cook for about 10 minutes in a static oven preheated to 200°C, then lower to 180°C and cook for another 15-20 minutes, finally remove from the oven and leave to cool completely.
Dissolve the coffee in the water after heating it, then let it at least cool.
Combine the mascarpone, icing sugar and coffee in a bowl and mix, then add the very cold cream from the fridge and whip with the whisk until you obtain a smooth and well-whipped cream, then transfer it into a piping bag with a not too large nozzle. great.
Create a small hole in the bottom of the cream puffs and fill them with the cream.
Finally proceed with the decoration: melt the chopped chocolate (in the microwave or in a bain-marie), then, one at a time, dip the top part of the cream puffs and place a coffee bean on top.
The coffee puffs are ready: let the chocolate dry thoroughly before serving them.
Coffee pizza Iginio Massari, presented at Identità Golose in Milan, made the news. Even if it’s not exactly news, “because I’ve been making coffee pizza for two years already”, confesses the Maestro. «At Identità Golose they asked me to “disobey” (this year’s theme of the international cuisine congress is “disobedience”, ed) and as a pastry chef I thought that the biggest disobedience was to become a pizza chef for a day.” Be careful, «I don’t want to replace myself or change jobs, but I know how to make leavened products “good” and also coffee pizza, which I have already proposed several times at banquets where both sweet and savory were requested.
Iginio Massari talks about his coffee pizza
But what is this coffee pizza? Iginio Massari himself answers us, reached on the phone early in the morning before entering his laboratory as usual: «To leaven the pizza dough I use coffee instead of water: I add 80% coffee and 20% olive oil to the wholemeal flours; I use wholemeal because it has more interesting aromas than white flour”.
Furthermore, to the taste«the bitter part of the coffee will be lighter because during fermentation it will reach up to 50%, and the acidity on the acidity increases the nuance of the coffee without the palate having the perception of drinking a coffee.
Even the consistency of the pizza is different from the classic Neapolitan one. «I prefer to serve it in a frying pan, because, to my taste and that of many others, it likes it better; the soft one always seems raw to me, that said I am sure that Neapolitans will continue to like the one they have always eaten, and yet we are certain that they will also appreciate this coffee crunch from Maestro Massari.
The city has already “accepted” (not without doubts) Gino Sorbillo’s pineapple pizza, so why not try Iginio Massari’s coffee one? «I can’t judge the pineapple pizza, I should try it first: what’s certain is that, as a pastry chef, the pineapple tiramisu pulls me down instead of cheering me up…”he concludes with irony, hinting at the verdict.
Iginio Massari’s coffee pizza will instead be topped with classic ingredients, no extravagance. On the occasion of the MeetMassari MMR-evolution event organized by Molino Dellagiovanna, Sunday 10 March, from 3.00 pm to 6.00 pm at the Yellow Lounge 1, Maestro Massari offers several pizzas with the same coffee dough («and to make it crispier on the outside I will add a little starch) but with different ingredients («all of high quality, otherwise you will ruin even the best pizza in the world), such as mozzarella, ricotta, anchovies, capers and cooked ham. The perfect match? «For me it remains a beer; of course, you can always ask for a good coffee to finish.
The Roman breakfast pizza from the 180g pizzeria in Rome with coffee powder.
That coffee is a precious ally in the kitchen is well known among chefs and also among pizza chefs, who have used it, and continue to use it, usually in powder form, to give an extra touch of aroma to the dish. Someone will remember or want to try Paolo Griffa’s spaghettoni tomato and coffee from Caffè Nazionale in Aosta*. In terms of leavened products we remember the Pizza coffee break by Denis Lovatel, who used a coffee gel added at the end of cooking. Or the Margherita flavored cappuccino made, again by Lovatel, with the specialty 1895 by Lavazza a couple of years ago, again at Identità Golose. Even on the last edition of MasterChef, one of the most difficult tests was the one that required a coffee dish. Last but not least, among the “disobedient” pizzas, also the Roman breakfast by Jacopo Mercuro (180g, best Roman pizzeria for the Pizza Awards 2019): a white-based pizza, with spiced and smoked lard, coffee-flavoured egg cream, San Vittore tanned cheese and coffee powder. Here the proposed pairing is a good cup of coffee.
Water and coffee: which one do you drink first and which one do you drink after? And then, is drinking water always necessary in this case? After all, when you go to a bar there are no rules: there are those who serve it (usually in the South) and those who don’t, or those who only serve it natural or only sparkling. Yet there is a rule. In fact, there is more than one rule. The first already clarifies many things: «A glass of water should always be drunk before coffee”says Mauro Illiano, professional taster, founder of “Napoli Coffee Experience”, member of the board of experts of the Slow Food Coffee Coalition and, among other things, editor of the first guide to Italian coffees and roasters.
When do you drink water with coffee?
First water and then coffee, therefore, and it is not a matter of taste or preference. «Water – explains Mauro Illiano – cleans the oral cavity. Except for the first coffee in the morning, provided it is drunk on an empty stomach, during the day coffee is often drunk after eating or drinking something else. With a little water you eliminate any possible contamination that could affect the tasting experience: you can perceive all the scents of the coffee, both through taste and smell.”
What is the purpose of water with coffee?
The tasting of coffee, in fact, is not limited to the moment in which we drink it: it continues afterwards, and also through the aroma of the blend as well as through its flavour. «After drinking coffee, its lipid part – which is the same that remains on the cup or on the walls of the spoon – also remains in our oral cavity and its scents then return retronasally, sometimes even for an hour. It is one of the many pleasures that coffee gives. Drinking it with your mouth clean from a sip of water is a simple way to not deprive yourself of it”, Illiano further points out.
Why shouldn’t water be drunk after coffee?
On the contrary, obviously, all this does not happen if water is drunk after coffee: «TheWater aids swallowing and therefore if you drink it after coffee it makes this pleasant sensation disappear says Illiano. However, if it often comes naturally to drink after drinking the cup, there is a reason: «It happens when the coffee is not good: it is burnt or too bitter for example. In these cases needing to drink is a natural and unconscious reaction: it serves to cleanse the mouth of unpleasant flavors and odors. It is precisely for this reason that it is often said that drinking water after coffee, when you are on the balcony of the bar, is rude towards the barista: he could interpret it as a way to tell him that he did not prepare us the cup we would have liked to drink .
Still or sparkling: which water to drink with coffee?
Among the things to know for optimal coffee tasting, there is also that What makes the difference is the water: when you drink it before coffee, it must be natural. «A low-mineral or sparkling water alters the approach to the palate, enhancing the hardness. That is: it makes the coffee taste more bitter if it is bitter, or more acidic if it already tends towards sour.”
Should chocolate be eaten before or after coffee?
Not just water, however: not infrequently, especially at the bar, coffee is served with chocolates or biscuits. What to do in these cases? «Except for particular pairing experiences between food and coffee, they should not be eaten before or after because they alternate the perception of the taste of the coffee: a very bitter chocolate can make the coffee perceived as less bitter than it actually is, and vice versa. A biscuit is even worse because it is generally very sweet: the shock of flavors that can result risks ruining the experience.”
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