Coffee Recipes for Studying

Hello friends! Welcome to another blog post, today I will share my top four coffee recipes for those who still study/work from home during these hard times. These recipes are incredibly easy and delicious, also during hot summer weather nothing goes better than cold coffee if you ask me. Before I get into the recipes, please do mind that I am not a barista, I don’t really know what I am doing, I am just doing coffee the way that I can with my opportunities. So I know that they are not perfectly accurate cafe recipes but they surely taste as good! Let’s get started with our recipes shall we?

We’re going to start by a simple yet delicious recipe. Americano. Iced Americano to be exact. Considering those who do not have an espresso machine at home, do not worry, I got your back and prepared a somewhat filtered duplicate for the espresso part. I chose large glasses for each of my coffee recipes so choose the glass that you like and prepare ice, lots of ice.

Let’s start with the regular Americano recipe: you only need one or two shots of espresso of your choice (I think nut flavored ones are amazing with iced coffee), lots of ice and cold water. Prepare your glas by putting it in the freezer for at least ten minutes, this way it gets a little colder, while drinking it gives a better feeling. While your glass is getting cold, prepare your espresso shot and once you are ready, take out your glass, put some ice and water in it. Lastly add your espresso and give it a mix. There it is, homemade delicious and fresh Americano!

For those who do not have an espresso machine at home, you can still get the taste with filtered coffee. First, add three tablespoons of filter coffee in your french-press. Then add 5 tablespoons of water. The main goal here is getting a bitter taste. The more you add water, the more it gets diluted, so a trick to get an espresso-like taste from filtered coffee is this. Prepare a very, very bitter brew. Once you brew the coffee, do the same. Get your cold glass, fill it with ice and water and lastly add your “espresso”. There you go, delicious glass of Americano with only french-press!

Now we are going to fancy our Americano with some glass art and some syrups. I chose to use white chocolate since I like the contrast on glass but you can actually do whatever you want. First, I melted some white chocolate using a double boiler technique (to be quite frank, the microwave works faster but I don’t actually have one) and smudged the melted chocolate around my coooooool glass. You can do drips, you can do random smudges, anything. I prefer making two circles, one being on the bottom and the other being close to the top. Once your chocolate freezes, prepare your espresso shot or filtered coffee shot that I have mentioned in the first recipe. Here comes the fun part: syrup. I know it is not the healthiest thing but syrups do wonders in coffee. Add the syrup that you like in your espresso and mix well, you can even add a little bit of sugar (yes, sugar in espresso, I know, baristas are going to kill me) if you want some sweetness. Be sure that your melted chocolate is completely frozen before putting all together. Add your ice and water, then your sweetened shot. Give it a good stir, you are done my friend! Aesthetically pleasing americano glass that only takes 5 minutes to make!

Let’s keep going with espresso shots shall we? Our next recipe is iced latte, the love of my life and my all time favorite coffee to drink. Latte is easy to make and softer to drink, so if Americano or espresso shots are bitter or not heavy for you, coffee with milk is your best option. For the latte, you need a cold glass, milk of your choice, lots of ice and an espresso shot. Put some ice in your glass and add your milk. The amount of milk depends on the way you want your coffee to taste but I usually fill 2/3 of my glass with milk. You can use sweetened milk and even add some condensed milk before adding your espresso to make it even sweeter. Then dilute your espresso (or filter) shot with two tablespoons of water if you want a softer taste. After that get a spoon and put it in the glass, holding it still, slowly pour your diluted espresso in it. If you do not dilute it yo can directly add your coffee to the milk without using spoon but since I am an obsessive aesthetic looking drink person, by diluting my coffee I help it to stay on top of milk and also make it taste softer. If you really pour it slowly enough with using your spoon as a shield, this beautiful gradient happens once you are done. When you are tired of taking pictures and decide to drink it; just mix it up and here is your latte!

My last recipe is the one coffee that goes around the entire internet right now… Dalgona Coffee. From the first day I’ve seen it on Youtube, I’ve been making it at least once a week and before you get scared of the idea of stirring something for a good 4000 times, trust me, it takes less than that. Well the idea of Dalgona coffee is making a coffee foam basically. You stir the instant coffee so much that it becomes thich and gets foamy. The videos I watched usually stir the coffee so much once you want to drink it, it doesn’t easily melt in milk and makes a huge mess, so my version is a little easier and you do not need a handmixer. First prepare your ingredients: instant coffee, sugar and boiled water. Put two tablespoons each in your little bowl and start mixing. Rather than mixing in circle motion, try to give the bowl an angle and mix fastly back and forth. This way the coffee and sugar melt faster. In five to six minutes the coffee will become lighter and fluffy. At this point, you can stop anywhere. If you want more liquid dalgona, stop and if you want something more foamy keep whipping. Once you are done with your coffee foam, add your milk and ice in your cold glass and pour the dalgona. The key point is pouring it slowly again and you shouldn’t worry if your dalgona is too fluid because no matter what; it will float. I like adding a little chocolate powder on top of my dalgona just to make it look cuter but if you don’t like it, pass that step and there it is my friends, the infamous arm working Dalgona Coffee. 

I truly hope you enjoyed this post, let me know in the comments which recipe is your favorite and if you have any recipe suggestions feel free to tell me! Love you all, stay safe and see you in my next post!