Today I answered a question that probably nobody has ever asked before: Can I Make a World-Class Old Fashioned Using IKEA Ingredients? I went to IKEA and bought a bunch of their products, including food & drinks, and made a cocktail using some of them. Old Fashioned was my first choice for this type of episode, but I came up with a couple of different interesting recipes, so let me know if you’d like to see more. For the Ikea Old Fashioned, I reduced ÖL MÖRK dark lager into a syrup with PÅTÅR coffee beans, made a BELÖNING dark chocolate cup, and filed it with MARMELAD APELSIN & FLÄDER, orange and elderflower marmalade foam. Check how to make them below.
I’ve made a beer reduction before but used it to make a cordial. This time I took a different approach since I added the sugar at the beginning (not after reducing the beer). I found this technique to work even better. Coffee beans were also a nice addition to this dark lager and it complemented all other ingredients in this Old Fashioned
Chocolate cups were a bit more tricky. I only bought one chocolate bar at IKEA and I practiced with a different chocolate (same cacao percentage) but it was without coffee particles. Since I had to temper the chocolate to make nice cups to hold the foam I found out that the coffee in the chocolate makes the chocolate at 31°C (88°F) too thick or viscous and it was hard to make cups out of it. I used the back of a spoon in the end and it turned out totally ok. If I were doing it again I would use different chocolate from IKEA. Marmalade foam on the other hand was super easy and delicious!
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To make it easier for you to try these recipes you can grab the bottles from my collection at CURIADA
IKEA Old Fashioned
● 60 mL (2 oz) Maker’s Mark bourbon
● 7.5 mL (0.25 oz) ÖL MÖRK dark lager syrup*
● 5 dashes Cocktail Time House Bitters**
● 2 drops saline solution
FIll the mixing glass with ice and stirr to chil and dilute. Strain into an Old Fashioned glass and garnish with a chocolate cup*** filled with marmelade foam****.
ÖL MÖRK dark lager syrup:
● 100g Demerara sugar
● 150g ÖL MÖRK dark lager
● 1,5g PÅTÅR coffee beans lightly crushed
Add 150 g of ÖL MÖRK dark lager into a pot, with 100 g of demerara sugar. Dark beer and slight molasses notes will pair nicely. And to enhance the coffee notes of a dark lager, lightly crush 1.5 g of coffee with a mortar and pestle and add that to the pot as well.
Now comes a bit of math. To get a 1:1 syrup we need an equal amount of beer and sugar. That means we need to cook off 50 g of the beer. I find the easiest way to do that is to first weigh the entire pot, with the beer, sugar and coffee and subtract 50 grams to get the weight we're aiming for. Maybe write that down, just in case you forget.
To start the process, place the pot on the heat to first dissolve the sugar and then reduce the beer. Stir every now and then, and when the beer starts to simmer off, check to see how much you’ve cooked off.
It will take a little while to get to the goal weight, but don’t rush the process or turn the heat too high or you’ll ruin the pleasant aroma of the beer.
When the beer reduces enough, you'll have what is basically a 1:1 syrup with a malty, rich flavor of beer and dark roast coffee.
Then it’s time to strain out the coffee particles. You can now bottle your IKEA beer syrup. Leave to cool and you’re ready to move on to the next ingredient.
**House Bitters:
Last thing we have to do is mix the Cocktail Time House Bitters, and you’ll be seeing these a lot on this channel going forward.
I came across a few cocktails using mixed bitters and did a lot of testing to see what I think works best.
At the end I found that the combination of Angostura aromatic bitters, my homemade chocolate and orange bitters gives cocktails incredibly full flavor and depth.
As substitutes for these two I’d recommend Bitter Truth Chocolate Bitters and Regans' Orange Bitters.
I worked out that the ratio of 4:4:3 works best so start with 20 ml of Angostura aromatic bitters. Follow that with an equal amount of chocolate bitters, and 15 ml of orange bitters. If you're in the US you add 1 oz and 0.75 oz.
Simply mix the 3 bitters together and pour into a dasher bottle. Cocktail Time House Bitters are ready.
*** BELÖNING dark chocolate cup:
Chocolate will be used to make small cups that will hold the orange foam. This BELÖNING Dark chocolate with coffee crunch will complement the dark beer syrup and the house bitters.
To shape chocolate into beautiful cups without any white spots we’ll have to temper it.
I'll split the chocolate, ⅔ and ⅓, then break it into small chunks.
I’m following the "no-BS instructions for tempering dark chocolate" from Chef Rudakova.
Get a double boiler ready and add the ⅔ of the chocolate. The steam from the pot below will heat the bowl on top, melting the chocolate. Once that happens make sure to check the temperature - that’s the key to a successful tempering process. For dark chocolate you want it to hit 49°C or 120°F, then take it off the heat to mix in the rest of the chocolate. Here’s where I noticed that this chocolate, probably because of the added coffee, might cause some problems. Even when hot it’s really thick, or viscous, so it might be hard to shape into cups after we add it to the mold. First we need to lower the temperature to 26°C or 79°F. Lifting it with a spatula will help with this process. When you reach that temperature, place the bowl back on the heat. Keep stirring and keep an eye on the temperature. Once it hits 31°C or 88°F you’re done.
With our chocolate tempered we can now take it off the heat and start adding the chocolate to our little molds. We used the same molds for the isomalt candy garnishes in the Gimlet episode. Fill the molds with about half a tablespoon of tempered chocolate. When you use up chocolate start turning the mold, with the goal of covering the sides as well, to create a small cup shape. Like expected, this was harder than I hoped, because of the viscosity of this chocolate.
You can try to shape the cups in the mold with the handle of a spoon. I think there's a reason I'm a mixologist, not a pastry chef.
**** MARMELAD APELSIN & FLÄDER Foam:
We’ll turn the orange & elderflower marmalade into a foam that will replace the orange zest on top of the cocktail.I’ll mix it with water, saline solution and xanthan gum, to stabilize the foam, which we’ll make with an isi cream whipper and a nitrous oxide cartridge.
We’ve done
foams before so let’s get right into adding our ingredients into the blender, starting with 120 g of MARMELAD APELSIN & FLÄDER. Follow that with 80 g of water and 2 drops of 20% saline solution. If you don’t feel like making saline solution just add a small pinch of salt.
And so the foam stay stable for longer, 0.5 g of xanthan gum. If you don’t have xanthan you can try to make the foam without it, but it will turn into liquid a lot faster.
Blend thoroughly to mix everything nicely, then strain straight into the isi chamber. The filter will catch any solids from the marmalade. Close the cream whipper and add the nitrous cartridge. You’re looking for a satisfying *psssssst* sound.
Once it’s charged all you have to do is shake it up a bit and place it in the fridge for at least 2 hours.
Then you’re finally ready to assemble your cocktail and then say the Swedish word, that’s a bit easier to pronounce: Skål!
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