When hot coffee meets hot chocolate and nothing is stirred
The important distinction of the bicerin, a specialty of Turin, is that, unlike with a caffè mocha, its three components – rich espresso, dark chocolate, cream – are layered in a glass.
All you need to know is in the words coffee, chocolate, cream. Historians nevertheless feel obliged to explain – and justify – the special appeal of the bicerin, Turin’s classic version of the coffee hot chocolate popularised elsewhere in Italy as caffè mocha or mocaccino. The important distinction of a bicerin is that its three elements are layered rather than mixed.
According to accepted truths either of theology or mythology – it’s difficult to say which – this coffee hot chocolate proved to be the ideal restorative for the faithful of the Santuario della Consolata, who had prepared for Holy Communion by fasting. After Mass, those Torinese worshipers able to endure the arduous pilgrimage of no less than 40 metres across the Piazza della Consolata to the Caffè al Bicerin found sustenance and warmth in a not-so-small small glass. As this elixir was brought to lips, layered liquids in deep shades of brown seeped through a cap of pristine white cream to deliver, sip by sip, a jolt of caffeine by way of a bittersweet chocolate high.
The bicerin was not so much a break-fast coffee as an evade-the-fast one.
The bicerin (pronounced bee-chai-REEN) was especially popular during Lent, or so it is believed: Hot drinking chocolate was not considered “food”, so it could be consumed with a clean conscience when fasting. It was a perfect escape clause in an Italian city famous for its chocolate masters. The bicerin was not so much a break-fast coffee as an evade-the-fast one.
The Caffe al Bicerin opened in 1763 by the entrance to the Santuario and later moved into more elegant quarters across the piazza within a 1856 palazzo designed by the local architect Carlo Promis.
For over 250 years, the confectioner’s coffee shop and cioccolateria has drawn scores of visiting luminaries – Charles Dickens, Voltaire, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Bertolt Brecht and Giuseppe Garibaldi likely not among them. But Pablo Picasso, Alexandre Dumas, Ernest Hemingway and Umberto Eco did come in to the cafe which might very well have invented the bicerin, most certainly without needing to have the appeal of the eponymous hot drink explained to them
Bicerin means “small round glass” in Piedmontese, a romance language of Piedmont in Northwest Italy. In Turin, the region’s capital, the bicerin is served in at the storied Caffè Fiorio as well as the elegant coffeehouses on the arcaded perimeter of the Piazza San Carlo. The glasses are clear, as you would expect, but they are not particularly small and would only look that way if used for a lager as opposed to a coffee.
There is some disagreement among the Torinese as to the order of the lower and middle layers of the bicerin, as well as the consistency of the top one: Some pour the hot chocolate in the bottom of the glass and cover it with a band of espresso, while others do the reverse. And while many whip their cream by hand, or commercially, with nitrous oxide until stiffened, others don’t bother to thicken the cream at all. (In the recipe below, I suggest something between liquid cream and fully whipped cream.)
The bicerin must always be served with a spoon, for reasons that are not apparent.
In the historic cafes of Turin, the bicerin must always be served with a spoon, for reasons that are not apparent. To add sugar, maybe? To spoon cream off the top? The fact is a bicerin is never stirred, at least not in the usual sense. You bring the not-small glass to your mouth, tilt it back and sip slowly, letting the espresso and cioccolata seep through the cream just before it passes through your lips. The variable creaming of the hot espresso and the hot chocolate is the drink’s special chemistry. Stir it and you lose the shades of layered pleasure.
BICERIN RECIPE
MAKES 2 SERVING
2/3 cup (150ml) milk
2-1/2 ounces (70 grams) bittersweet chocolate, chopped or shaved
1/3 cup (about 30 grams) ground coffee (fine grind for espresso, medium-fine grind for moka pot)
sugar to taste, optional
1/2 cup lightly whipped cream, beaten until thickened by not yet still
Heat the milk in a small saucepan over medium heat to a simmer, stirring occasionally with a whisk. Add the chocolate and heat, whisking constantly, until the chocolate is melted and smooth. Simmer for another minute, remove from heat and cover.
Brew the coffee to yield two shots, about 6 ounces (175ml) espresso or strong coffee. Sweeten with sugar, to taste.
Divide the hot chocolate evenly between two heatproof glasses. Pour the espresso over the chocolate. Place a spoon over the glass and pour the whipped cream over the spoon to fill the glass. Serve immediately, without stirring.