Without question, coffee and ice-cream are best friends. One great combination of the two is the traditional affogato. Affogato is Italian for "drowned", and that's basically what's happening to the ice-cream when a shot of espresso is poured over a scoop of vanilla.
We thought we'd put a spin on tradition and make a cold brewed affogato of our own.
To get a similar level of coffee concentration as espresso, we brewed up a concentrate. To do this, we simply used less water in the tower than we normally would.
Brew Parameters:
250ml of water/ice (30ml pre-wet, and 220ml in the tower).
60g of Verve's Sermon Espresso ground a little finer than we normally use (to compensate for the shorter brew time).
Drip rate set to one drip every two seconds.
After the 3-4 hours it took for the brew to finish, we drizzled it on a few scoops of vanilla ice-cream. Instantly, a thin frozen shell of cold brew formed on the ice-cream. It was delicious, and unlike any affogato we've had before. To better articulate the differences, we decided to do a direct comparison with a traditional affogato.
We pulled a shot of the same coffee we cold brewed and poured it over a scoop of vanilla. It had that characteristic heavy mouthfeel with a mildly bitter finish that balanced the sweetness of the ice-cream nicely. It wasn't long before the hot espresso had melted the ice-cream creating a more homogenous mixture. On the other hand, our cold brewed version didn't mix in with the ice-cream nearly as fast keeping the two flavors a little more distinct. The result was more like a coffee liquor with cold brew's characteristic smooth and sweet finish.
I can see this becoming the afternoon go-to treat in our office. Give it a try and let us know what you think!