Greetings fellow coffee connoisseurs,

Recently, I visited a local book store and found "The Maxwell House Coffee Cookbook" featuring hundreds of coffee recipes for $1.50. For that price, I figured it was worth it. Most of the recipes that call for coffee recommend using "quality instant coffee."

Of course, I've been involved in the specialty coffee community long enough to know that instant coffee is a terrible way to drink coffee, generally frowned upon by everyone who really cares about the quality of their cup, and even considered a cardinal coffee sin by many. My thinking is that I might run into problems with the extra cup or two of water that's added when using a good cup of brewed coffee. I don't want the desserts and cakes to taste terrible, but I also don't want them to change based on the extra H2O that I'll be adding. If you all have had any experience baking with coffee or instant coffee, I thought I'd see what you all suggest.

I also thought of experimenting with a turkish grind. That way, it's not instant coffee, but it's still a very fine fresh grind that might mix into the cakes and cookies well. I would only need to experiment with doses.

So the question is, do I compromise? Or do I stick with my gut?

I suppose it depends on what is being prepared. You could take an appropriate volume of ground coffee and use a mortar and pestal on it, then mix the coffee with some of the wet ingredients first. of course, if the recipe creates a food that is expected to have a thoroughly smooth texture you could make some filtered, cold-brew coffee extract.

I would probably stick with instant coffee or do what you suggested for the coffee/mocha frostings for the cake. I don't think water would improve the viscosity of the mixture. I'll have to experiment with cake batters and such. I might just use my aeropress and brew a double or triple strength shot and mix into the batter. There's enought wet ingredients that it may not do too much to mess up the cake. Most of the desserts require sugar too, so the sugar may counteract the poor quality of the instant coffee.

Turkish grind works in cakes, used like cocoa powder, and is great for dusting home-made truffles if they're going to be eaten within the hour. Maybe a ristretto is better than brewed coffee unless the recipe includes a lot of water. In ganache for example a ristretto works well to bring forward the chocolate. To be honest though I can't taste the difference between instant and real coffee in cooking, except maybe in ice-cream. Perhaps others can.

Maybe you could get your local coffee house to make you up a dozen ristrettos and freeze them in an ice-cube tray, a suggestion I saw in the forums for some other project, so they're to hand. Get the name of the blend for marketing purposes

Now I want one of those grappa-and-espresso-laced truffles. Damn.

Katherine is right: You are better off using even a can of preground Turkish coffee. First, the mouthfeel is better (instant coffee entirely dissolves). The other thing is taste. If you use Turkish coffee, you get the cellulose as a slightly crunchy, tasteless mass. In instant coffee, most of that same cellulose has been hydrolyzed (cracked) and rendered soluble; this results in an excessively bitter taste.

Thanks for the replies. Most of the recipes only call for only a tablespoon or two of instant coffee. I'll just have to substitute instant for turkish coffee and see what happens. We'll see if our Pasquini is up to the challenge of a turkish grind.

I'll try to remember and post some results.

Fwiw, I recently made a German's Chocolate Cake, and where the recipe calls for boiling water to melt the chocolate (1/2 c) I used ristrettos from the CMA lever.

The coffee was barely detectable. As the only other liquid in this cake is buttermilk, which is needed for the acidity, I'd have to otherwise modify the recipe if I wanted to increase the coffee flavor.

You are talking about dry instant coffee, right? Not a liquid like in a Tiramisu.

I'll say that it depends on the recipe. And that you need to be smart about it.

To give an example, a Tiramisu calls for espresso to dip the lady fingers in. I made one with espresso and it was horribly strong and bitter. I trashed it. (and that says a lot for me, since I "eat everything"). When I made one with a double strength French Press, it worked fine. Then I tried again but made a very lungo espresso and it worked well. All the above was from the same espresso blend and batch.

If the recipe calls for liquid, you could make a French press or drip and replace the liquid in the recipe, or just replace less than a half of the liquid with the coffee beverage. But again you need to be smart about it and ask yourself what is the purpose of the original liquid in the recipe when you decide how much of it you can safely replace with your coffee recipe. Is it for flavor, or just moisture, etc?

Also, not nesesarily 1:1 for replacing instant with Turkish. It also depend of the flavor of your roast. For example, I like ice cream and naturally like Affogato (Vanilla ice cream topped with espresso shot). It frequently does not work, even when the shot is tasty by itself. Earlier this evening I made one and it was the most delicious Affogato I've ever had in my life. It basically tasted like a super delicious espresso ice cream instead of espresso "in" ice cream. Strange, but espresso that were on the chocolate flavor side didn't work for me before. This time the blend I have is of the ripened mandarin/tangerine/clementine flavor, delicious as an espresso, doesn't work that well in milk (cappuccino) for me, so I didn't expect much in the Vanilla ice cream, and for whatever reason it worked magically as an Affogato today. So what I am saying is that there is no one rule and sometimes you'll have to try and err before you get to your desired results.

What I found out is that when working with specialty coffee, they actually HAVE flavor (duh) and that flavor can either ruin your recipe or make it magical. On the other hand when using instant or 'comfort food' beans (supermarket, etc) there isn't much in there to either ruin or make magic in your recipe.

Ground espresso or Turkish works as dry rub on meat. Or in the sauce of meat roast, etc.

Bottom line, you can always replace instant with espresso or Turkish but you need to be mindful of how you use them.

I made a tirimisu at the last meet up we had here in the bay area and I made sure to sweeten the espresso before using it in the recipe. The recipe called for instant espresso powder, but I believe I used Redbird.

I decided to give the turkish grind a try in a recipe, so I made some coffee fudge last night. Overall it worked well, but the coffee flavor is a bit strong. Rather than doing a 1:1 ratio next time, I'll do what LaDan says and try out a smaller portion. It wasn't a complete failure or a complete success.

A few days ago, I made a mocha glazed chocolate cake using brewed coffee and that was delicious if I do say so myself. Maybe fudge isn't the best experimental dessert. I'm sure the ingredients in cakes mask the strong flavor of coffee better.