Whipping up an internet sensation
The internet is going crazy for this homemade ice coffee, but is it worth the effort? Emily Brookes finds out.
I’m a coffee snob, and a purist. Give me a long black or a flat white, or give me nothing. Do not give me sugar. Do not give me sprinkles. Do not give me a syrup in any form. Do not, for the love of all things holy, give me instant. When at home, give me a french press, ideally made using beans from a free-trade roastery, so I can crow about it.
But lockdown is getting to me. After two weeks I saw a mirage in my espresso desert – the whipped iced coffee that’s taking the internet by storm. Desperate times, etcetera. I decided to make it. I was hindered somewhat in that lockdown conditions have brought me to the home of my husband’s parents with whose kitchen I am not overly familiar because my mother-in-law does almost all of the cooking, and by the eternal presence of my young children.
But it looked pretty easy. You take two tablespoons of instant coffee, two tablespoons of sugar, two tablespoons of hot water, blend the whole thing up into soft peaks and pour over ice and milk.
‘‘Do you have a stick blender?’’ I asked my mother-in-law.
‘‘Somewhere,’’ she said. ‘‘I don’t use it much.’’ She unearthed it from the back of a cupboard.
Into a bowl went the coffee, the sugar, and the hot water (even I know where the jug is).
The blender followed. So far, so good. Soon, my children appeared at my side, the sound of a mixer eliciting in them a Pavlovian instinct to hang around me until I offer them a bowl to lick.
‘‘It looks like chocolate,’’ said the 5-year-old. ‘‘It’s not chocolate,’’ I said.
‘‘Can I try some?’’ Asked the 3-year-old. Yeah, right. Like I’m going to give practically undiluted caffeine to a child who woke me up at 1am to ask why her baby doll had eyes.
The 5-year-old wanted to mix, and was going well until he paused to start sniffing the air.
‘‘Is that smell of burning machinery coming from your blender?’’ I asked my mother-in-law. ‘‘Maybe,’’ she said. ‘‘I don’t use it much.’’ My first thought was to substitute electric beaters, but there was so little liquid they couldn’t really catch. Then my mother-in-law produced her enormous, heavy hand whisk, the one that once belonged to her own mother, and with which I had seen her whip cream just the night before.
‘‘This will be grand!’’ I said. ‘‘I’ll have soft peaks in no time!’’
I whisked. I whisked some more. My arm ached. Still I whisked.
‘‘How far away am I from soft peaks?’’ I whined to the house at large.
My mother-in-law peered into the bowl. ‘‘Far,’’ she pronounced. ‘‘Honestly, I don’t know if you’re going to get soft peaks with that mix.’’ ‘‘The internet says I will,’’ I insisted. ‘‘Don’t believe everything you see on the internet,’’ she said, neatly illustrating our generation gap.
I gave up my integrity as a journalist and a feminist, and subbed in my husband. Eventually we had, if not soft peaks, at least gentle tundras.
‘‘It looks like chocolate,’’ said the 3-year-old. ‘‘It’s not chocolate,’’ I seethed.
I put ice cubes in a glass. I poured milk over the ice and spooned coffee cream over the milk. As promised by the internet (told you, mother-in-law), it sat pleasingly atop the milk. Using a milk foamer retrieved from the same place as the stick blender, I whizzed the whole lot together.
It tasted, I’m not too proud to admit, good. Really good, in fact. Sweet, cold, thick. We all tried some.
‘‘You could have cheated and used a sachet of instant ice coffee,’’ said my mother-in-law, gesturing to the stick blender cupboard.
Now you tell me.
But I am enlivened by my experience. Emboldened.
Next, I’m going to try an Easter Egg Espresso I’ve seen online. You tip frothed milk through a hollow easter egg sitting on a shot of coffee and voila – mochaccino!
At least it’s actually chocolate.