I am normally a tea drinker, but when I crave coffee, it must be very good – strong taste, rich flavor and clean aroma, but not burning. The same goes for coffee desserts. This one has all my favorite ingredients, and with the weather warming up it is perfect now through the end of summer!
You’ll find café liégeois on most ice cream menus in casual restaurants throughout France, as a frozen interpretation of the classic hot-coffee-and-whipped-cream version. My version uses chocolate sorbet instead of coffee or vanilla ice cream, and a wonderful vanilla whipped cream. You need only 8 small scoops of sorbet for this dish, not the full batch made by the recipe (as follows), but since sorbet is easy to keep, I don’t think you’ll mind the leftovers. I am not indicating exact amounts for the components of the recipe, because it’s a very personal thing. I like a lot of chocolate sauce, while some people prefer less. Some might like a lot of almond, others none at all. Make it to your guests’ liking, or set out all the ingredients and let them make their own. It couldn’t be easier.
Instead of using vanilla extract to make vanilla whipped cream, you can scrape the inside of a vanilla bean into the cream. Add the sugar, and, if you have time, let the mixture sit in the refrigerator, covered, overnight. When you whip the cream as usual, it will be full of vanilla flavor and flecked with vanilla seeds, which adds a nice visual element to the dish. You can divide the whipped cream ingredients in half if you make this dish for only four people. FP
About this recipe…
