Iced Coffee

If I had it my way, I’d drink multiple cups of coffee a day.  I know it’s not a great idea to do this, so I limit myself to two cups a day (maybe three if I feel like I deserve it).  Hot coffees are great in winter for warming up, but now that the days are getting hotter here in Sydney the last thing I want is a hot beverage.  An iced drink will hit the spot much better than a hot one.  Enter the iced coffee.

I found two great posts about iced coffee recently on two separate blogs.  I combined them into one and the result is so much better than I had ever expected.  The recipe uses instant coffee and you don’t even have to boil water to make it.

Let’s start about a day ahead with our recipe though.  First you’ll need to freeze a tray or two of coffee ice cubes.  You can use regular ice cubes, sure, but I think the coffee ice cubes look neater (plus, they help to keep the strength of the coffee flavor in your drink).

I got the coffee ice cube idea from Food o’ del Mundo.  You can use whatever coffee you like to make these ice cubes – brew some coffee in your coffee machine, or use instant coffee, whichever you prefer.  For my ice cubes, since I don’t have a coffee machine at the moment, I dissolved two teaspoons of instant coffee in two cups of very hot (but not boiling) water.  I let it cool to room temperature then poured the coffee into two ice cube trays and froze them overnight.

On the next day your coffee ice cubes are ready to go.  Here’s how to make this super easy iced coffee – I got this recipe from Zoom Yummy.

In a cup/glass that you can fit a lid with, place 2 teaspoons of instant coffee and 2 teaspoons of sugar. Add 4 tablespoons of water. Cover the cup/glass with the lid and shake it vigorously until it gets super frothy. SUPER frothy*. The coffee and sugar will completely dissolve. Set the cup/glass aside for a minute while you fill a tall glass half full with ice cubes. Grab the frothy coffee mixture, pour it over the ice cubes, then fill the rest of the glass with cold milk. Then drink it!

How beautifully cold and yummy does that look!

*Okay, I shook my coffee mixture until my arm could shake it no more and that was as frothy as it was going to get, like you see in the photo above the recipe.  On the photo at Zoom Yummy, the froth filled the entire glass – she must have some super frothy coffee!  Maybe you get different amounts of froth with different brands of instant coffee?  Try it out yourself and let me know what happens with your froth!