In this recent cold spell in Europe, I’m starting to drink more and more coffee than ever before. And I’m not just drinking it – I’m holding cup after cup of it.
This got me thinking of ways that I could use the cold coffee – not necessarily the steamed and foamed drinks, but often the basics – Americanos, Instant or Percolated Coffee.
So far, I’ve got a…err….varied list- ranging from heating it up again (either using a Microwave, or splitting it into two cups, and topping each up with boiling water), using it to make Coffee Cake, or even making Frappes.
Heating the drinks up may be a short term boost – it’s less waste, and faster (very good if I’ve been caught on the phone with a customer or door-to-door salesperson) but the flavour does seem to be a bit lower due to either diluting the strength, or the flavoured oil burning a bit.
Making Coffee Cake is great for three reasons. 1: Coffee. What’s not to love about that! 2: It’s cake….again, what’s not to love about that! And 3: It’s fun to make. Baking a cake will keep me as warm as a cup of Coffee, but it’ll also be a great treat to go with my drinks each day. But each of these takes a long time, and quite a bit of coffee to make (well, if you like it with a similar strength to mine!) so I’d have to either waste a lot, or make some more up on purpose to waste. It also doesn’t taste right if you’re using a flavoured Coffee syrup.
Frappes may seem like the ideal solution, and indeed, it’s the most common thing I do. When I was in the Scouting movement, my leader kept saying to have drinks that are close to the temperature outside – because the closer your core temperature is to this, the less you’ll feel the cold. Of course, unless you have hypothermia, in which case I’d suggest calling a Doctor or Medic.
What do you often suggest doing with your unused Coffee?
Photo Courtesy of: Dyobmit
Originally posted on December 21, 2010 @ 6:45 pm