I thought it would be nice to share with you all the recipe and thought behind my UKBC signature drink.

I was really pleased with the drink this year and Gwilym only just pipped me to the post of winning ‘Best Signature Drink’, I think the main reason being that I didn’t relate the drink itself back to the coffee that I was using.

The drink is a modification of the drink that I made last year, but this version is much shorter and stronger, plus it has a little more involvement as far as the judges are concerned. I like the idea of using ingredients that traditionally work well with espresso, but signature drinks historically require some kind of twist. This year I decided to turn that twist into a sensory experience for the judges in the form of warming the liquid in front of them and getting them more involved in the process of building the drink up.

Recipe

For the base…

• 40g butter
• 40g ground almonds
• large pinch of ground nutmeg
• pinch of salt
• 80ml golden syrup
• 150ml water
• level tablespoon of dried currants

For the cream…

• 100ml double cream
• 100ml milk
• 1/2 sheet of leaf gelatin
• pinch of vanilla sugar (or a few seeds from a vanilla pod + some sugar)
• 50g walnuts

Method

Base

Melt the butter into a frying pan then add the almond flour, currants, nutmeg and salt. Turn that little lot into a paste then add the golden syrup and stir thoroughly. When mixed thoroughly add the water and stir everything into a light syrup. Simmer for 5mins then strain through a large sieve whilst still hot. The sieved solution will still contain small lumps of almond so put it in a blender a blitz for around a minute or until smooth and thick. Allow to cool, bottle and refrigerate.

Cream

Melt the gelatin in a small pan with 50ml water. Blend the walnuts and vanilla with the milk for 1 minute then fine strain through a tea strainer. Combine the cream with the walnut milk and the cooled gelatin solution.

Putting the drink together

All that needs to be done is to combine 25ml of the base syrup with an espresso then whip the cream up and float it on top. If you want to do it as I did, then simply warm the syrup in a cup for around ten minutes, this releases a wonderful cakey, spotted dick, sponge pudding aroma. Then combine the espresso with the syrup and float cream from and ISI gun on top.

To drink, simply sip a little of the cream, then give everything a good stir. It should taste something like coffee and walnut cake, with lots of body, it’s almost chewy in texture. The other good thing about warming the syrup is that it makes the whole drink a bit warmer overall for a slightly more pleasant experience!

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