Coffee Charlotte

Koffietaart met lange vingers

50 grams finely ground coffee
200 ml water
50 ml coffee liquor or Kahlua
100 grams sugar
1 package powdered gelatin
4 egg yolks
375 ml whipping cream
150 grams lady fingers
75 grams halved walnuts

Make a strong brew of the coffee and 200 ml water. Dissolve the gelatin in it. Put the sugar and a tablespoon of water into a sauce pan, turn the heat to medium high and brown it. Quench it with the hot coffee, mix it thoroughly, add the liquor and turn off the heat. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks till they are light and frothy. Put the bowl in a larger bowl of warm water and keep beating the eggs till they are warm and thickened. Bit-by-bit add the cooled-off coffee and take the bowl from the water, letting the contents cool off.

Take 250 ml of the whipping cream and beat it till firm. With a spatula fold it through the coffee/egg pudding. Rinse a form in cold water and pour the mix into it. Refrigerate the dish for 2-3 hours.

Take from the fridge, dip it a few seconds into a dish of hot water to ‘loosen’ it from the original form, and put it on a large flat dish. Whip the remaining 125 ml whipping cream. Cut the lady fingers in half and line them up against the rim of the pudding. Garnish with whipped cream and the walnuts.

Coffee or koffie is a word that originates in the Arabic language. ‘Qahwa’ originally meant ‘wine’ but later the brew made in the Arab region where the plant originates. When the Turks introduced it to the Western world, their word ‘kahve’ was taken in as well, thus appearing as ‘café’ (French and Spanish), ‘caffè’ (Italian), ‘coffee’ (English), ‘Kaffee’ (German), ‘koffie’ (Dutch)or ‘kaffe’ (Swedish).