My first go at making an affogato

This post is not a recipe, rather a record of my first (and somewhat failed) go at making an affogato, with my lessons along the way.

The weather has been good over the last few weeks. I have taken the good weather as a sign that it is time to start experimenting with cold drinks. I made a few cold drinks last year but I was so early in my coffee journey that I did not have much time to experiment. I decided to focus on my hot coffee first with the hope that when the better weather came I would be able to go back to cold coffee drinks.

There is an interesting coffee food (or maybe drink) called the affogato, a mix of coffee and ice cream. The affogato feels like something of a dessert but also a good afternoon snack on a warm day, or at least that is how I chose to see the affogato. I done some research and came up with a simple recipe for an affogato. The recipe did not work how I hoped but now I know what to improve next time I try to make an affogato.

I decided to make my affogato with my Aeropress. I do have a Flair espresso maker but I am taking a bit of a break from home espresso. I know I can make good coffee with the Aeropress, which is not something I can say about my experience with the Flair just yet.

I used the following recipe to make my affogato:

Ingredients: 15 grams of coffee, 100 grams of water, one scoop of vanilla ice cream.

1. Grind coffee to a medium setting (16 on my Baratza Encore). Put coffee into my Aeropress.
2. Put one scoop of ice cream in a glass. Place Aeropress brewing chamber on top of the glass.
3. Start timer and pour 100 grams of water into the Aeropress.
4. Stir the coffee slurry five times.
5. Wait until 1:15 and then stir three times.
6. Press the Aeropress.
7. Serve with a spoon.

The ice cream coated in coffee was delicious but I had some issue with the consistency of the rest of the drink. As I expected, warm coffee melts the ice cream, but the coffee melted the ice cream to a greater extent than I would have liked. I ended up with quite a lot of ice cream and coffee slurry which I found quite overwhelming for my palate.

I often find I need to practice to get a coffee drink right. With that in mind, I have an idea on how I can improve my affogato: use cold brew coffee. I have been brewing cold brew for the last two days and I like the flavour profile. Notably, cold brew coffee would not melt the ice cream to the extent that my brewed coffee does. I could pour a little bit of cold brew, which already uses more coffee than I usually do for a cup, onto the ice cream and see how the final drink tastes. Then, the coffee would accompany the ice cream rather than melting it to the extent I had an overwhelming slurry.

Another idea would be to brew with hot water and use less water, perhaps closer to 60 or 70 grams. This would reduce the extent to which my ice cream would melt. But perhaps I will try this after trying the cold brew idea because I think cold coffee could be quite promising.

The affogato I had was tasty when eating the ice cream (or, what was left of it) which leaves me with an interest in seeing how I can improve my drink. I want to maximise the infusion of coffee and ice cream without melting the ice cream too much. I will check in once I have experimented with making an affogato with a cold brew coffee.