Sweet nectar of the gods...

Magical coffee indeed. (Plus variations on ice cubes) I'm not a big coffee drinker, I don't drink a cup a day. I don't even drink a cup a week. We don't own a coffee maker, we do have an espresso maker- but I don't use it. I do love coffee when I'm out and about though. Then I love coffee. I'm a social drinker, LOL.

I do love iced coffee though. Vietnamese iced coffee especially. I think because when I was growing up my mom always ordered it when we went out for a nice big bowl of Pho. So I associate it with that comfort food. She would also make it at home, that and the Limeade I love so much. On hot summer days, I still remember the sound of the spoon hitting the sides of her big tall glasses. She would most likely be working out in the garden. She didn't let us drink coffee though as kids. My cousins and I would make coffee when our parents were gone though! With that one sentence I just threw everybody under the bus.

I have posted iced coffee here on GPAC before. I have one method here, Vietnamese Ice Coffee. Which is fantastic, but it requires brewed coffee or espresso. There's also these Vietnamese Ice Coffee Popsicles. Can't go wrong with those. I never batted an eye at other recipes for iced coffee. Then I saw this Magical Coffee recipe on food52. I thought, well, no brewing that's awesome. Why not try it. Now I can't say that this method makes iced coffee out of this world. But I can say that making a huge batch for the fridge and freezer, (the ice cubes!) using this method sure is easy peasy. So I used this method for brewing the coffee. I just left out the ground cinnamon and sugar. So many different things you can do with this. So, I'll give you the method and some variations.

The cool thing is you have coffee grounds for your garden. I don't have a garden. But discard the grounds, into your garden. I hear it's good for plants. I wouldn't know. I can't grow anything but weeds. I did spoon some into the plastic cup that Piglet brought home. She grew grass at school, and it was "so easy mom." Don't get too attached to that plant, kid.

Magical Coffee (or as I say, Sweet nectar of the gods!)

Adapted from Food52

4 1/2 cups cold, filtered water- it's what I had, tap won't kill you though

1 cup coarsely ground coffee- any flavor you wish

 

Put this into a glass container or bowl. Stir. Cover and refrigerate overnight. (12-16 hours, I've left it a little longer too.)

Place one coffee filter or nut milk bag into a strainer and strain the coffee. Discard the grounds, into your garden. *see note above about this, before you take my advice.*

Take some of the coffee and pour it into an ice cube maker. When you have iced coffee, it won't get watery when it melts. (Flavor variations below)

To serve- I used sweetened condensed milk. Just stir it into the cold coffee. Throw some ice cubes in and you're done.

You can also use any other milk, half and half, cream.

Sweeten with honey, agave, maple syrup, sugar in the raw, brown sugar...

Things you can add to the brew over night-

• 1-2 cinnamon sticks (really any spices)
• Masala chai spices, like the ones in this Chai Syrup- ginger, cloves, black peppercorns, cinnamon, cardamom pods, star anise, etc. 
• Cocoa nibs, I'm going to try some soon. I put these in my Chocolate Chai!
• Vanilla sugar or a vanilla bean, in this case I'd go with a cheap extract. One bean for a batch of coffee is pricey!
• Orange zest
• Unsweetened coconut flakes 

Coffee Cube Variations-

• Freeze just black coffee
• Freeze the coffee sweetened, with or without the creamer
• Freeze with a flavor extract that can withstand the cold- do different flavors! Then put them in labeled bags, when you want flavored coffee you'll have different cubes. You can use this to cool hot coffee and add flavor at the same time.

You can flavor this any way you like really! What coffee flavors do you like?