Welcome to my home cafe 🏡☕️💕

It’s cold outside, so come on in – we’re serving Christmas-spiced lattes, Meyer lemon bars, and more.

Hello and welcome back to Five Things I Ate! This week, we’re bringing the coffee shop inside your very own home. Check out past posts here, and please follow my Instagram @fivethingsiate.  

Kobana mug at Miya

Here’s the link.

The perfect at-home cafe starts with the perfect mug – a quest that is not as easy to achieve as it sounds. A good mug, to me, is one that has the perfect mouthfeel (for lack of a better word, I’m sorry if that’s cringe), weight, size, and durability, while being very aesthetically pleasing. I tend to have one primary coffee cup that never quite perfectly satisfies me, which I use every morning until it chips or cracks, and when it finally does, I cycle through all my second-tier tea mugs until it is replaced. Thankfully, I’ve finally purchased a proper coffee cup and I’m happy to report that it’s bringing me a lot of joy every morning. The Kobana mug at Miya (I’ve also seen it in person at Sunrise Mart in midtown) is the perfect size of 12 ounces, which means that if I make a cup of coffee that is exactly 8 ounces, I have room for foam without exceeding the inner rim painted on the inside of the cup (for artistic reasons). It’s glazed a beautiful blue with flowers, fluted on top and is thin enough to be pleasant to drink from, and has a handle so that that thinness won’t end up burning your hand. Best of all, it’s microwave and dishwasher safe. I should probably invest in a second mug.

Spiced orange Christmas coffee at home

Yes, I know it’s the end of January.

Just because it’s not holiday season anymore doesn’t mean you can’t keep holiday flavors around. There’s a reason that citrus and spices exist, and that is to keep our foods from being totally depressing when the rest of the world outside is dark and cold. For this spiced orange coffee, you’ll need half an ounce of ground coffee (light roast please), about ½ tsp orange zest, a teaspoon of cinnamon and a dash of vanilla extract. You’ll want to put in the aromatics (aside from vanilla) into your pourover (or filter, whatever your method of coffee-making is – just scale it up if using a machine). One of the great things about making flavored coffees is that A) it can elevate a less flavorful or cheaper bean (I just use Trader Joe’s Barista Blend, which is very affordable) and B) you don’t really have to measure your aromatics, it’s totally fine if you add some extra because it’s going to filter out a bit. You can drink this zesty coffee black, with a splash of milk or half and half, or go all out and top with hot foamed milk, a dash of cinnamon, and some more orange zest. The extra fresh orange zest at the end is key! To keep the Christmas feeling going, drink with a Ferrero Rocher, the immigrant family Gift of Choice.

Speculoos latte at home

For those of us who like one-step cooking.

If you want all the coziness of the Christmas coffee and none of the zesting and spicing involved, may I suggest the simple, magical act of putting a spoonful of Speculoos cookie butter at the bottom of your pretty coffee mug? Drip the hot coffee on top of the cookie butter and it will magically melt and meld into your cup, releasing all the delicious caramelly and spice flavors. Top the hot coffee off with steamed milk as per usual, and give it a good swirl with a spoon. Part of the magic lies in letting some of the cookie butter remain at the bottom of the cup, so you’re left with a little treat of melty, sweet cookie butter at the end of your coffee break.

Almond-orange hot chocolate with whipped cream at home

Made on the fly.

Earlier this month, I shared my recipe for the perfect hot choccy. Now, I’m not saying that this is a more perfect hot chocolate, it’s just very delicious. Instead of using whole milk, I used vanilla almond milk. I know that people have different stances on almond milk and the environment, so you can also use oat or whatever you have on hand. This is possibly the only good use of Plant Milk, imo, because it actually serves a purpose – when you don’t use dairy milk, you allow the flavor of the hot chocolate to just be chocolate, and not dairy. I spiced this hot chocolate similarly to the Christmas coffee, just because it’s so delightful. To make it, warm up one cup of vanilla almond milk (I used the Califia brand), whisk in 1 tablespoon of cocoa powder, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, and 1 teaspoon of orange zest over low heat. Stir in a splash of vanilla extract and a tablespoon of dark chocolate chips. Top off with freshly whipped cream. 

Meyer lemon custard bars at home

Inspired by Emily Mariko, recipe adapted from Ina Garten.

In my dream cafe, the pastry counter is always stocked with lemon bars. I’ve heard that in some cafes in Italy, they serve espresso with a lemon peel on the saucer, because coffee and citrus have such undeniable chemistry. Taking a bite of a tart lemon bar, and then a sip of a frothy latte, is my way of mimicking this effect. I still had a few Meyer lemons leftover from my bun-making last week, so when I saw Emily Mariko use them to make lemon bars I knew I had to follow suit. I made a small batch of one-third of this recipe from Ina Garten, which fit perfectly into a parchment-lined loaf pan, yielding eight small squares. I used Meyer lemon zest and juice and half of the sugar called for, because Meyer lemons are sweeter and way less tart than regular lemons. I would describe them as tasting more like lemon-scented tea or flowers than the ordinary puckery, hard-candy tartness. That makes these lemon bars taste more like lemon custard bars than lemon curd, a delightful breakfast treat. 

Stay warm out there,

Soph

P.S. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for being a reader. Please support my writing by buying a paid subscription for yourself (or a friend!) so that I can continue to keep sharing my thoughts.