At-Home Barista Adventures | Part 1

Hello friends!

I hope you're all doing as well as can be in the weird state of our world.

This might not be news to most of you, but I love coffee. I drink it pretty often (very often) and I love experimenting with making my own "copycat" versions of things I love to get at coffee shops. Since I've had a lot of time at home during quarantine, I've been becoming my own at-home barista and trying all sorts of different coffee drinks/creating new versions of them. I thought I'd start sharing some of those with you guys, so here's our first "episode".

I. WHIPPED COFFEE

Okay, I'm sure a lot of you have seen too much about whipped coffee/dalgona style coffee already, but I couldn't leave it out of this post. I was a little skeptical, but I ended up really enjoying it!

Here's the typical whipped coffee recipe:

- 2 TBSP instant coffee

- 2 TBSP sugar

-2 TBSP hot water

- approx. 3/4 cup of milk (any milk; I use vanilla almond milk!)

Preparations for this one are pretty simple: using a hand mixer, whisk the instant coffee, sugar, and hot water together. This will take anywhere from two to five minutes-until the coffee thickens (if you've ever made meringues, the consistency will be similar to that).

Once you've whipped it enough, put some ice and milk inot a glass and spoon the coffee mixture on top. Mix it up and enjoy!

(Side note: the instant coffee flavor was just a little too strong for me the first time I made it, so I tried adding a little less instant coffee the next time I made it and enjoyed it more.

Also, for variation, I added two teaspoons of cocoa powder for a chocolate version!

II. SPICED MOCHA

Mochas are one of my favorite coffee drinks, and recently I've been loving mochas with some cinnamon + other spice. The creamy, chocolatey coffee with an extra kick is lovely.

Ingredients:

- 2 TBSP honey

- 2 TSP cocoa powder

- 1/2 TSP cinnamon

- 1-3 pinches each of ginger and allspice

- 3/4 cup (approx.) hot coffee

- approx. 1/4 cup of milk

To make this spiced mocha, start by adding the honey, cinnamon, and other spices together in a mug. Stir until well combined. Add the hot coffe and stir it into the honey and cocoa mixture. Add milk of choice and enjoy!

III. COLD BREW

I absolutely love cold brew but I hadn't tried making it myself until last week! It turned out great and I'll be making it all the time now.

To make the cold brew, I added two tablespoons of coffee grounds to a jar with two cups of water (it's best to use purified water) and then stirred the jar to make sure it was all incorporated well. It's pretty simple: just place it in the fridge overnight (at least 11-12 hours). After that, pour the coffee through a fine strainer to separate the grounds from the cold brew. Then let the coffee sit in the fridge for another hour before drinking.

I hope you guys enjoy these DIY coffee recipes! I've been playing around with iced vanilla lattes and matcha lattes recently, so those recipes will be coming your way soon!

Have a great week and stay safe, friends!

-Anna