Another Cup of Coffee (with Pecan Nuts)

I had managed to sneak an extra day off work on bank holiday Tuesday and spent the early morning resting up after a summer of cricket, travelling, fundraising and parties. Every extra minute of my lie in over and above the time I would normally rise to go to work felt like it was helping me re-energize after what had been a very enjoyable four months.

When I got up I took the dog to  a country park which in years gone by was a working colliery that had  once been the lifeblood of the now downtrodden villages that surrounded the country park. I had last been to the park six years earlier when my world was a very different place.

As it was nearly the end of summer I carried on the theme of looking back and marking time by preparing on my return home a sweet dish that although taking its inspiration from a retro recipe from the seventies, was updated to contain several modern twists.

I started by greasing with margarine twelve small patty cake tins contained in a single baking tray. I then made a short crust pastry mixture using eight ounces of plain flour and four of margarine with about two tablespoons of milk to bind the ingredients together to make a pliable pastry.  I cut the pastry into twelve square pieces and moulded each piece into a cup shape that fitted neatly into the cake tins in the tray.

I cooked the pastry cups in the oven at 180 degrees, 190 degrees for non-fan ovens, for twenty minutes and once this period was up I removed them from the oven and from their cases and left them to cool on the side.

While the cases began to cool I began to prepare the filling. The soundtrack to this part of the preparation was Syd Barrett's variable but worthwhile 1988 compilation of rarities and outtakes 'Opel', which ranges from slightly embarrassing quasi-demos to driving innovative songs such as Clowns and Jugglers and the title track.  Barrett is best known as the founder member of rock legends Pink Floyd and almost as well known for his subsequent breakdown and gradual withdrawal from the music scene after masterminding the band's unique and ingenious debut album. I was bought Barrett's solo back catalogue, which is all of two studio albums and Opel, when I was studying for my A-Levels a few years ago and its far out but lovable quirkiness is something I enjoy returning to on occasion.

I creamed together three ounces of brown sugar and margarine in a mixing bowl and followed up by adding a tablespoon of instant coffee which I stirred thoroughly into the mixture together with three ounces of ground almonds. The coffee granules and ground almonds served to provide a rich and raw texture to the filling which I proceeded to spoon evenly into each of pastry cups once I was sure the cups had cooled completely.

I then made the coffee icing by placing four ounces of icing sugar in a mixing bowl with two tablespoons of lukewarm water and half a tablespoon of coffee granules. I mixed the granules into the water to make them dissolve and then stirred the mixture into the icing sugar to create a thick topping that the set hard when left to stand.

Before the icing had a chance to set properly I spread it evenly over the top of the filling in the pastry cups and to decorate I put a Pecan Nut on top of the spread icing. The outcome produced a strong tasting foodstuff that works equally as a dessert or an accompaniment to a mid-morning cup of tea. Certainly the raw taste of the coffee in the dish helped perk up my colleagues when they sampled them the following day at work and the food would not be out place on offer at a coffee shop.

The dish was finished with a Pecan Nut on each one.