Dalgona Coffee - Specialty Edition
If you’re anything like me, all this idle time at home has resulted in a lot of mindless scrolling on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. And if you’re abstaining from downloading TikTok because you think it’s beneath you, check your PhD in maturity at the door because we all know you’re not above anything.
If you’ve spent any amount (nobody’s asking how much time) on TikTok in the last few quarantined weeks while #stayinghome you’ve likely come across the viral Whipped Coffee sensation. Videos tagged with #whippedcoffee have been viewed over 1.5B times. Yes, that B stands for billion. So what is it and why’s it all the rage?
Well, food bloggers are head over heels about this drink because it’s just about the most photogenic thing you’ve ever seen. Snow white milk topped with a frothy caramel coloured cap makes for a great pic for the gram or header for a blog.
The kids love it, too. All the cooped up teenagers can’t stop drinking these things because it gives them both clout and a caffeine kick. Not just caffeine, but the sugar content helps to send those teens right over the edge and into TikTok euphoria.
Whipped coffee didn’t originate on TikTok though, and it’s not even a recent invention. People in Asia have been drinking versions of this unique drink for years! Known as Phenti Hui Coffee in countries like India and Macau, whipped coffee is also know as an Indian style cappuccino. By another name, Dalgona Coffee is how it’s known in South Korea as it resembles a common candy called Dalgona.
Making the drink is rather simple. The classic recipe calls for 1 tablespoon hot water, 1 tablespoon of sugar, and 1 tablespoon of instant coffee. Add those ingredients to a bowl, hand mix until frothy, and serve over top of a glass of milk and ice. Easy, right?
Crafting A Specialty Version
Specialty glass for a specialty drink
While I have no interest in a drink made up of those ingredients, I did have interest in the idea of crafting of specialty version of this viral sensation. So I sacrificed some valuable TikTok time and got to work trying to recreate this viral sensation.
I’ve never had Folgers or Nescafé brand instant coffee, and frankly I’m not sure I ever will. There are specialty versions of instant coffee however, and I just happened to have some on my bar. My instant coffee of choice was roasted by Lüna Coffee Roasters and made instant by Voila Coffee. One packet will do.
We don’t stock processed sugar in our pantry, but we do have some organic cane sugar on hand. I toyed with the idea of using honey or maple syrup as sweetener, but I wasn’t confident they’d have the same congealing effect that granulated sugar does. Cane sugar it is.
Volume vs. Mass
Adding hot water to those two ingredients is the easy part, but figuring out how much wasn’t as simple as the common recipe makes it out to be. You see, volumetric measurements are essentially useless. 1 tablespoon of your coffee is surely not equal in mass to 1 tablespoon of mine, so I got out my scale and measured them by weight. 1 packet of Voila instant coffee came out to 4.4g, and in volume was about 3 times lighter than sugar or water. So I decided to do a 1:3:3 ratio, tripling the weight of sugar and water. Into the mixing bowl they went.
This is where things took a turn.
Crystallized instant coffee like that of the Folgers variety seems to either have a different chemical makeup than the coffee I used or possibly added ingredients, but all I know is that I couldn’t get my mixture to froth for the life of me. I whisked by hand for 5 painful minutes before moving to the stand mixer with no better results. I added more sugar, more water. More sugar. More water. There was no hope in sight with my current set of ingredients, so I needed to come up with some sort of thickening agent.
My limited knowledge of baking or just science in general led me to xanthan gum, and it turns out it was a lucky guess! After adding just a dusting of xanthan gum my Dalgona topping began to take shape, literally. What looked like nothing more than coffee for the last 10 minutes now began to thicken, raise, and even transform in colour from dark brown to an amber caramel.
I poured my ice cold whole milk into a coupe glass because why not and then gently topped it with the fruit of my arduous labour. Looking good and TikTok worthy, I took my first sip.
“Of course. It’s bad.”
I mean, it’s not bad. It tastes like a Caramel Frappuccino or whatever, so take that for what it’s worth. Definitely not my style of drink, positively not good for your general health, and probably not worth the effort. But hey, what else are we supposed to do during this time?
Here’s The Recipe
Ingredients
1 packet (about 5g) of specialty instant coffee (I used some coffee from Voila Coffee)
15g of organic cane sugar
15g of hot water
1/4 tsp of xanthan gum
Whole milk
Ice
Steps
Mix the coffee, sugar, water, and xanthan gum aggressively with a hand mixer or stand mixer. Don’t waste your time and energy trying to whisk this by hand.
Once smooth and frothy, serve gently over milk and ice in a chilled glass. Take a pic for the gram, post to TikTok, and then give it a taste. Make sure to drink it after you’ve snapped your shots though, because this is best enjoyed after being thoroughly stirred.
And that’s it! Are you on TikTok? Find me at @alexandermillscoffee and let’s #bringcoffeetotiktok
