Food & Dining Bulletproof or butter coffee / tea / cocoa

Bought some Colombian decaf coffee on the weekend, tried making some yesterday morning. Not impressed with the coffee on its own (didn't really expect that I'd like it).

However, with butter in it - wow! I can see why people rave about butter coffee! Really changed the taste and texture once blended in.

I only used one teaspoon of coffee this time, but I think with the butter added, 2 tsp would work better. With the butter and some MCT oil it was also very filling.

That being said - I'm going to try a few other drinks to see which one I like the best. Cocoa, cacao, dark chocolate (85% and 90%), black tea, green tea.

For the chocolate, not sure whether to try melting it in hot water, or using coconut milk or cream or perhaps almond milk.

I think almond milk is disgusting (may as well just use water) and I can't find any coconut milk that has less carbs in it than cows milk does - although it does have a much higher fat content than cows milk.

I might just try water first - see if the butter blended in with the chocolate makes it palatable.

I may have to do some calculations - don't want to overdo the fat given the content already in the chocolate, and I'll want to compare carb content across the various drinks as well.

 

I have no interest in learning the art of coffee making

I'd rather find a non-coffee alternative than join the cult of the coffee bean worshippers!

 

Or just skip the coffee and use chocolate!

 

I tried green tea blended with butter this afternoon - wasn't bad at all. I didn't make the tea overly strong and only added about 25g of unsalted butter, so it wasn't overpowering.

Of course, it's a much more subtle flavour than coffee.

I'll have to try black tea next to see which I prefer.

I'm still thinking I'm likely to end up with some form of chocolate as my preferred drink - just need to watch the carbs and make sure I don't overdo the total fat content.

 

Homocysteine

Ta

Rolf

 

Stevia

 

Grabbed a tea bag of black tea from my parents this morning and tried again with black tea. Made the tea much stronger this time and added a full 50g of butter and 1 tbsp of MCT oil. Wasn't bad at all - although I did find it catch in my throat a little - not sure if that's the oil or the fact that it was early in the morning and I was a bit dehydrated.

 

Okay - now we're getting somewhere.

Today's experiment:

• 10g Homebrand Cocoa Powder (it's the best brand of cocoa powder - I've tried them all - wife agrees, makes the best chocolate cakes, also lowest carb content and highest fat content!)
• 50g unsalted butter
• 1 tbsp MCT oil (in future might just weigh it ... 1tbsp is a bit under 20g)
• 200ml boiled water
• blend

What a delicious hot chocolate! I thought the water would make it taste yucky, but the butter blended in made it creamy enough that it was actually really enjoyable. The strong bitterness of the cocoa was evident, but with a great chocolatey aftertaste that I really enjoy.

I find most shop-made hot chocolates (even if "dark hot chocolate") to be too sweet and not strong enough - using cocoa gives me that strong flavour quite nicely!

I had that at 8:30am and woke up feeling really hungry, it's now 11:30am and I'm feeling like I've eaten a large meal for breakfast - might not even have lunch (will try some bone broth a bit later if I get peckish).

Homebrand cocoa powder has only 9.4g of carbs per 100g, so under 1g of carbs in that drink.

I'm not sure I'm even going to bother trying to make a drink based on dark chocolate. Might try the cacao powder tomorrow though.

 

Today's experiment:

• 10g Cacao powder
• 45g unsalted butter
• 10g MCT oil
• 200ml boiled water
• blend

Have never had cacao powder before, so wasn't sure what to expect.

It was quite nice - chocolatey, not as in-your-face as the cocoa and there was a bit of a bitter aftertaste that lingered.

I think I prefer the cocoa - the bitterness is stronger but up front and then you get the lingering chocolate, whereas with the cacao the chocolate flavour came first and then the bitterness lingered, which isn't quite as nice.

Perhaps I need to try other brands of cacao powder to see if they differ (I know cocoa powders differ quite a bit).

The cacao powder is quite high in carbs (just over 20g carbs per 100g), so my 10g was still 2g of carbs - not too much, but given I prefer the flavour of the cocoa which has half the carb content, it's a bit of a no-brainer really - I think I'll be sticking with cocoa not cacao.

My mum tells me that to get the best flavour out of the cocoa you need to cook it first - just adding it to hot water or milk isn't enough, so I might try changing the way I make it - mix it with some water in a mug and microwave it first before blending it with the butter.

I might try the same with the cacao and see if that has an impact on the flavour.

 

After lots of experiments, I've settled on a recipe that I'm happy with and is giving me good results.

My recipe for butter cocoa:

• 10g of Woolworths Homebrand Cocoa in a mug
• add a little water and stir into a paste to remove lumps
• 75% fill mug with water, stir and then microwave for around 1:20 until it starts to boil (you need to keep an eye on it, because it will boil over really quickly like milk does and make a mess!). You may need to experiment with your microwave to find the optimal cooking time
• pour hot cocoa into blender, add 50g of unsalted butter and optionally 10g of MCT oil (going to try this week with coconut oil instead for something different)
• blend until smooth and frothy
• pour back into mug and enjoy

It's a very strong and slightly bitter cocoa taste, but the butter adds a nice creaminess to it. If you don't like the strong flavours of very dark chocolate, you probably won't like this - try using less cocoa (but it will likely taste a bit watery if you do).

Contains less than 1g of carbs from the cocoa - Homebrand cocoa is only 9.4g per 100g - be careful with some other brands, some can be as high as 60g of carbs per 100g !!

This doesn't fill me up immediately, but I find about half an hour or so after drinking this, my stomach feels really full and I won't feel the need to eat for quite a few hours - potentially all day (depending on how active I am).

I'm not yet convinced about the MCT oil (perhaps I'm not using enough), and I should try some pure C8 oil at some point to see if that makes a difference.