Dead Man Espresso, South Melbourne

Dead Man Espresso was a great start to my Tuesday.
 An easy going cafe with really good people who serve really good coffee. Looking around the room i note that the patrons are a mix of cyclists, yoga mums, trainee doctors, office workers, a couple of bums like me with a good book and one interesting guy who was sipping 3 cappucinos infront of him.
Ahh.... this must be the place where coffee snobs go to get their coffee.

 I ordered a double ristretto flat white on skim.  Their coffee blend was good, balanced and naturally sweet. The milk was perfectly stretched and carried the coffee well. It was good.

 For brunch I ordered the "Green Pancakes" which, according to their website is "green veggie pancakes w edamame bean salad, citrus butter, smoked salmon & poached egg"
 

It was really good! I loved the portion size. It looks healthy, delicate and light, but the protein from the salmon, edamame and egg kept me full for the next 5 hours. The green pancakes were moreish with a mixture of onions and some other unidentifiable green stuff (and potatoes i think). Egg was runny on the inside and I appreciate the decent amount of smoked salmon on the plate. I really liked the greens. I think they could have been wild rocket? Not sure, but they were peppery and went well with the dish.

Definitely a place i'd like to visit again
deadmanespresso.com.au
35 Market Street
South Melbourne
03 9686 2255

Cranberry tea biscuit

I was caught in the act of looking up teas to buy online. And was told off for it. I’m not allowed to buy more until I’ve finished the bulk of what I already have. 

First World Crisis.

So I looked online for a couple of recipes for biscuits and adjusted to my laziness/what was available. After a couple of hits and misses I thought I’d better save it online to use again.

It’s a great recipe for those who are addicted to caffeine. Pop a couple in your mouth if you need to wake up early for lectures or stay up late to study. I found that 2 biscuits of these have the same effect as a cup of coffee!

Prep time- 20 minutes 

Cooking time- 12 minutes 

Here’s what i put in:

• 3 tablespoons of loose leaf tea (I used picnic tea, which is like a weaker English Breakfast. Other recipes call to split open tea bags.. but I really needed to use my loose leaf!)
• 1/3 cup of dried cranberries (I used Craisins)
• 1 1/4 cup of plain flour
• 1 pinch of salt
• 110g unsalted butter chopped (apparently the butter is of better quality and you can monitor the salt content in the butter much better yourself when it is unsalted)
• 2 tablespoons of lemon juice (I used lemon zest in a previous recipe but I found that the zesty pops of the lemon took the focus away from the taste of tea)

Instructions:

1. Food process/Pulse/Blitz the tea leaves so that they’re smaller
2. Pulse up the cranberries with the tea so that they become small grains (the size of broken rice)
3. Mix in all the ingredients with a spoon so that the cranberries are distributed evenly, then pulse it all together. Once you’ve finished the food processing, the dough should be on the dry side, looking a bit crumbly.
4. Using the warmth of your hand, gather up the biscuit dough and form a long log. Wrap this up in baking paper and shove it into the freezer to chill (I stuck it in for 15minutes)
5. Preheat the oven to 150 degrees Celsius. if fanforced, crank it up to 170 if not.
6. Take our your log and slice out 0.5-0.8cm slices (i used a cheese slicer ).
7. Lay it out onto baking paper- you don’t have to give it much space because it won’t spread much. (I reused the baking paper I wrapped the biscuit log in)
8. Stick it in the oven for 12 minutes, or until it goes a light brown.
9. Once done, empty it out onto a cooling rack and eat!

Just an important note: please don’t eat these biscuits late at night if you want to sleep! I kept forgetting to tell people that it was made with with tea so they ended up sleeping after 2am!