Lea & Jay

I am so excited about the recipe I have for you today…Baileys & Coffee Pots de Crème! Why so excited, besides that fact that I’ve got 7 days of my St. Patrick’s Day blog-a-palooza done and dusted (only 10 more days to go…)? Well, I am excited about that, but I’m also thrilled because these little treats are quite possibly a game changer for me. Not only were they delicious, and I’m talking a swoon-worthy kind of dessert, but they were so easy to make. I’m serious. No baking. Just a few whrrrr’s of the food processor and some chill time. And then before I knew it I had these simple yet elegant, boozy, rich, chocolatey decadent desserts, ready to be garnished and served.

Pots de Crème (pronounced Po – think how southerners might pronounce “poor”- de Krehm) are a french custard which dates back to the 17th Century. Traditionally served in little pot shaped dishes (hence their name) or demitasse cups they are usually baked at low heat in a water bath. Their consistency is similar to a chocolate mousse but more dense yet not quite as firm as a flan. But this recipe today is for the new fangled Pots de Crème. As I said…no baking is involved. I’m telling you these little dreams are so easy to make you could do it first thing in the morning, while you’re still sleeping…perhaps before you’ve even had your first sip of coffee (or tea). Well, that might not be true, but they are pretty dang easy.

However that doesn’t mean that there aren’t a couple of really important things you must do to ensure the success of this recipe. First of all, those eggs need to be room temperature. I promise you it will not work if you pull the eggs straight out of the fridge. Easiest thing to do is just set them out the night before. Oh come on! They are not going to go bad sitting out over night! But if this makes you nervous, you can let them soak in a bit of warm water to bring them up to room temperature. Again, I said warm water. Not boiling hot water. You don’t want to cook them at this point. Next important thing to remember is that it needs to be HOT coffee, not room temperature. I’m talking like McDonald’s lawsuit temperature coffee. That coffee has to melt all the chocolate as well as kill any bacteria that might be in those raw eggs, so don’t mess around. Put it in the microwave if you must and nuke it…nuke it real good! And finally once you’ve added the very HOT coffee, make sure you run the blender long enough that the chocolate is thoroughly melted and uniformly mixed. That is pretty much it. You just pour it into whatever containers you plan to serve it in, leaving plenty of room for the whipped cream and pop them into the fridge. In 3 -4 hours they will be set and ready to serve.

I did this step first thing in the morning, though after I had my first mug or two of tea, the day of a dinner party and didn’t even think about them until I was ready to serve later that night. So there you have it. No fuss, no muss. And what a rousing success they were with the dinner guests. I mean, who doesn’t love coffee and Baileys and chocolate (oh my!).

Folks thought that I had slaved away all day to come up with those divine silky Baileys Coffee treats I was serving up. And I won’t tell them otherwise, but aren’t you glad I let you in on the secret?

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 7th, 2015 at 10:49 am and is filed under desserts, Holidays, Recipes, St. Patrick's Day. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.