Whole Latte Love

If you go back to my first blog, you may remember that I can’t function without my cup of coffee every morning. This may be a problem, but what’s also been difficult is not being able to enjoy my afternoon latte while relaxing at my favorite local coffee shops.

I include this tweet for a good laugh because maybe this also sounds like you and you know where I'm coming from.

This is a weird time. It makes me realize that I took for granted all those afternoons at the coffee shops while sipping on my iced coffee. Although most local businesses have shut down, some remain open with shortened hours and are available for curbside pick-up or take out only. While this is important and I highly encourage you to go and support your local businesses, this may be a time for you to be creative and think about different ways to get your caffeine fix.

For me, most mornings I tend to have a hot cup of coffee to get my day going. I don’t add anything to my coffee other than a splash of almond milk or oat milk. During the afternoon I tend to order an iced coffee or iced latte. I laugh while writing this because I am aware that I have a bit of an interesting routine and maybe I drink too much coffee?

Anyways, I’m all about getting creative in a time like this. It’s so easy to grab my phone and spend most of my time on social platforms- specifically Instagram. I spend a little too much time on my explore page and have been trying to follow more baking and cooking accounts to keep myself busy.

I particularly love one of the accounts (@eatingbirdfood) I follow. I have loved seeing all her recipes and reading more of her blog about how she makes these delicious-looking meals. The other day she posted about her coffee and as a coffee lover I had to learn how she made it. She called it Whipped Coffee also known as Dalgona coffee.

I had never heard of it, but it sure did look good and relatively simple to make- or so I thought. I knew what my next project was. It looked easy enough- but naturally, my first try looked NOTHING like hers and I was confused.

Here’s what you need:

- A frother

- 2 tablespoons of instant coffee or instant espresso (I like the Trader Joes kind but to each their own)

- 1-2 tablespoons of sugar (of your choice) I’ve tried it with coconut sugar and enjoyed it.

- 2 tablespoons of boiling water

- 1-2 cups of milk (of your choice) As mentioned above, I typically use almond milk or oat milk but any will do.

Before I get to the instructions I would like to point out that my finished product was not nearly as pretty and well-done as the picture shown. I’ll let you in on a little secret—when I first tried it I used coffee grounds instead of instant coffee and as you can imagine, well, it just didn’t work and didn’t froth the way it was supposed to. And as my friend Maddie told me to try it, it didn’t taste very good either, not sure why I thought just maybe it would? Nope don’t use coffee grounds.

Now onto the instructions:

First, you whisk the coffee with the sugar of your choice and the boiling water together using either a stand mixer, hand mixer or even more fun, a frother. After doing some back and forth reading, it seems to me that a hand mixer will get you the foamy-ness you need, but having used a frother it does work.

Make sure you whisk for 2 to 5 minutes until it gets foamy and resembles liquid peanut butter (of course I would mention peanut butter).

Next, you will scoop the foam mixture over top milk with ice. Here is where you get to decide how much milk you want to add as well as ice.

Regardless of how it looks—I do have to say that it tastes delicious, so I suggest if you like coffee and want to try something new this is a good one. Since the Instagram post, I have seen so many others posting about their whipped coffee—so take a stab at the newest coffee trend.

I’ve enjoyed making this a couple of times and have had a kick out of it, so maybe you will too. And each time, it looks a little better than the last.