As the weather has finally changed and we are feeling the warmer weather these days, I have switched to drinking iced coffee instead of a hot coffee. When it comes to making coffee at home, it is not always as simple as pouring coffee over ice, so I thought I would bring my iced coffee tricks and tips to the blog so that you are prepared if this cold drink craving comes to you anytime soon.
Ice Cubes. Iced coffee is not always as simple as it sounds. Get coffee, pour it on ice. For some people it is as simple as that, but they do end up with a really watered down iced coffee beverage that definitely deserves some definite improvements. With my trial and error experiments, I have found that one of the best ways to get a real iced coffee all starts with the ice itself. This trick involves taking black coffee and turning it into coffee ice cubes. This does not take very long to prepare in advance, and makes it super simple for when the craving comes and you can prepare the drink itself in hardly any time at all. If you have noticed anything in the past with my food and drink recipes on the blog, they are all very easy and simple. Once the ice cubes are frozen, you can pop them out of your ice cubes tray and store them in a sealable plastic type of bag in the freezer. When your brain starts to tell you that it wants a cold caffeinated beverage, all you have to do is take them out and use however you wish.
As a few alterations to this ice cube trick, you can change things up a bit when making the ice cubes or how you use them. For the ice cubes, you can always add some sort of sweetener to them so that the ice cubes melt into a sweeter coffee flavour. This could include sugar, agave, honey, milk, any sort of coffee creamer, whatever floats your caffeine boat. When it comes to using the ice cubes, you can just put them straight into coffee, or just into a glass of milk if you want a really creamy coffee as the ice cubes melt over time. You can add maple syrup to that for a maple flavoured iced coffee. Again, this is completely customizable to however you like your iced coffee beverages. The possibilities seem endless with this option!
Go slow. This iced coffee trick involves a slower process of making iced coffee, but the end result will be 100x better than it if you had made it quickly. This is also the method I have been using most of the time lately and think it also works really well to not have a watered down iced drink. The key of this trick is to make your hot coffee and add in and sugar you need while is still hot and can dissolve the sugar easily, and then using a spoon or similar tool, transfer the hot coffee to a glass of ice cubes and continue until your ice cube cup is full. This will result in an iced coffee that is not watered down from the hot coffee melting your ice from pouring it all over the ice at the same time. Little bits of hot coffee poured over ice allows the ice to cool down the coffee a lot faster and the taste in the end is definitely worth the extra time to make it. The ice will eventually melt in this and will become slightly watered down, but not as quickly as it would have been if all poured over ice at the same time.
How do you like your iced coffee? Do you have any tips or tricks that you have to share? Comment below and I would definitely like to try them out!
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