Locally made sweets pair well with rum coffee

Here’s just what you need for an afternoon pick-me-up, evening dessert or something sweet for breakfast.

Rum barrel-aged coffee

We love the smell of a newly opened bag of coffee, especially if it’s been freshly roasted. Rich, deep and earthy, that aroma makes us want to brew a pot, no matter what the time of day. Open a bag of rum barrel-aged coffee from Richland Rum, and on top of the rich coffee fragrance, there’s a noticeable hint of sweetness. That’s because Richland Rum purchases fair-trade green coffee beans, then ages them in rum barrels, still moist with a bit of the rum that was aged in them. After a few weeks, the beans make a journey to Americus so the roast masters at Cafe Campesino can turn them into full-city roast, a medium-dark roast with full flavor and less acidity than lighter roasted coffees. The beans’ time in the rum barrels introduces the sweet fragrance of rum and the cane it’s made from. This coffee is not to be made in your countertop coffee maker. Richland Rum owners Karin and Erik Vonk suggest using a French press, or even an old-fashioned percolator, to get the best results. We shared a pot of French press with neighbors and, yes, some of us poured in a tot of Richland Rum to sweeten the coffee further. We thought it was just the right accompaniment to a plate of cake and cookies. If you don’t want to run out, join the Richland Rum Coffee Club, and have two bags of coffee delivered to your door each month, or once a quarter.

$18 per 1-pound bag of ground or whole-bean coffee. Available for a limited time at the distilleries in Richland and Brunswick and at richlandrum.store.

Pound cake

Is it possible for a pound cake to be “lighter than air”? If so, then baker Tony Rivers of Atlanta-based Trublue Pound Cakes has found the secret. Rivers said he started with a recipe that was his sister

Latoya’s, sold at Cafe Florie, her Savannah restaurant. Delicious as her recipe was, he wanted a cake that was even more moist and flavorful. His tweaked the recipe for what became his signature vanilla butter nut pound cake, and that led to the opening of Trublue in 2019. The focus is on just pound cakes, and his wife, Renée, helps him dream up the more than two dozen flavors he now bakes. Baking is not Rivers’ primary job (he works in information technology), so he does his baking in the evening and on weekends. And, on most Saturday mornings, you’ll find him standing behind his table at a local farmers market, his big smile a clear indication of how much he loves what he does.

$5 per slice, $35-$40 per 10-inch pound cake, depending on the flavor. Available as a whole cake or by the slice at the Brookhaven and Dunwoody farmers markets. Whole cakes are available at facebook.com/trubluepoundcakes.

Rugelach

Terri L. Hitzig-bogartz of Terri’s Table is one of those people who turned the pandemic into an opportunity to concentrate full time on something she loves. She left the antiques business to open an online bakery offering delicious traditional deli favorites for those who love black-andwhite cookies, mandelbrot and luscious jam-filled rugelach. The rugelach is made with a rich cream cheese-butter dough, spread with homemade mixed berry jam, then rolled, cut into 1½-inch cookies and sprinkled with colorful, sparkling sugar before baking. We are pretty good at baking, and this rugelach is better than any we’ve made at home. While you’re shopping, don’t forget to order some chopped chicken liver pate. After all, Hitzig-bogartz styles herself as the “queen of chopped liver.”

$12 per bag of 1-dozen rugelach. Available at terriskitchentable. com.

COURTESY OF RICHLAND DISTILLING CO. Richland Rum Roast coffee beans are aged in rum barrels.

COURTESY OF CAMILLE RIVERS Trublue Pound Cakes come in more than two dozen flavors.