A daily cup of coffee (or maybe two or more for coffee lovers) is a must to most of us. But who said that you always had to take your coffee the usual way?
I’m not talking about varying your coffee drinking habit by choosing to go black or adding milk or changing it up by adding dash of cinnamon or whatever you normally don’t put in your coffee. Instead, why not forego the whole drink experience and opt to savor it as dessert?
Affogato is one of my all time favorite coffee desserts. I love making affogato not only because it is really delicious, but also because it is super easy to make. And yes, it gives a pretty good caffeine boost as well if you use espresso instead of mock espresso.
To make instant affogato all you need are:
– a few ounces of espresso OR instant coffee and a shot of rum
– store bought vanilla ice cream
– heavy cream
– cocoa powder OR shaved dark chocolate
With such a short list of ingredients, it’s already pretty clear that this is one dessert quickie anyone can make.
Whip your heavy cream in advance and refrigerate and take out your espresso machine to make fresh espresso. You can also opt to make this instant affogato recipe even easier (though espresso purists will probably go blech) by using instant whipped cream and mock espresso. To make the mock espresso, just add a shot of rum to instant coffee dissolved in hot water. Once the espresso base is ready put in a few ounces on cup and add a scoop or two of ice cream. Then put a dollop of your whipped cream on top of the ice cream and sprinkle some cocoa powder or chocolate shavings for the final touch. You can also just put in the ice cream and whipped cream then serve the shot of espresso on the side so that people get to control how much to put into their dessert.
The beauty of this recipe is that you get to play with it around as much as you’d like to. You can use whatever ice cream flavor, as long as you think it will go well with coffee. You can also use homemade ice cream the way Mario Batali does with his affogato, or even go healthy by using low fat ice cream.
Originally posted on June 21, 2013 @ 4:07 am