French Press Iced Coffee

Remember a few months ago, when I was all excited about my new French press? Well… I still totally love it! Of course, now that summer has come to Germany, I'm not much in the mood for hot coffee in the mornings. But I still like that little caffeine hit. Dilemma, dilemma.

I spend a lot of my mornings at our local Java Cafe, hard at work blogging and editing photos. Like many places in Germany, there is no air-conditioning only fans. On a whim, I ordered an iced coffee one morning, and that's when it struck me.

Why couldn't I do this myself at home??

If you know me at all, then you know what happened next.

Iced coffee happened, peeps! But not just any iced coffee. This is a cold-brewed, French press version of iced coffee.

I know, I'm pretty awesome.

This chilly beverage was so yummy, even Lucy was begging for it (I accidentally spilled a little, which she quickly gobbled up).

The only catch to this recipe is the amount of time it takes to cold-brew the coffee. This isn't something you can prepare last minute, unless you keep some of the coffee 'concentrate's your fridge (which I am!). Basically, the coffee needs at east 12 hours to brew, but it's super easy. Here is what you need to get started:

French press and your favorite ground coffee, that's it. I gotta be straight up with you, my friends. Dunkin' Donuts is the best coffee ever. I will assume you agree.

To your French press, add ½ cup ground coffee (I'll pretend you are all using Dunkin') and 3 cups of COLD water. The water must be cold, no hot-brewing for us! While the cold-brew technique takes longer, I find it produces a much smoother coffee base, which I like. Gently stir things around, then replace the lid on your French press. But don't push down the plunger yet!!!!

Just so you understand the importance of this, let me repeat myself. Don't push down the plunger, people, I mean it!  Things should look a little bit like this:

Notice the position of the plunger, ok?

Now, you just walk away. That's right, walk away. For at least twelve hours. I like to mix this at night, then I'm all set for iced coffee in the morning.

Technically, iced coffee would simply be coffee served over ice. You can totally wake up in the morning, press down the plunger, and pour your cold-brewed coffee over ice. OR, you can make this sweeter, flavored version that I think is awesome. Completely up to you.

Here's what you do: Fill 4 glasses to the rim with ice (or one glass, or two. This recipe makes 4 servings, but you can store your extra cold-brewed coffee in the fridge for a week or so). Pour ¼ cup of half-n-half in each glass, and ½ - 1 tablespoon of the flavoring of your choice. I chose vanilla (and used ½ tablespoon), but you could easily use caramel, hazelnut, peppermint… anything really.

Then, top each glass with ¾ cup of the cold-brewed coffee. Stir, and enjoy your awesomeness.

As usual, the standard recipe is below. This is a basic recipe, with lots of options for customizing. Try different coffees, flavored creamers, various syrups or spices. I love the idea of a caramel and sea salt creation! In fact, I think I'll try that next.

Until next time, my friends!

Thanks for reading, everyone!

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The Standard Form:

Basic Iced Coffee

(Cold-Brewed)

Ingredients:

½ cup ground coffee

3 cups cold water

1 cup half-half

up to 4 tablespoons of vanilla syrup

Directions:

To begin, cold brew your coffee. Add the ground coffee to your French press, then top with the 3 cups of cold water. Gently stir the mixture, then place the lid on your French press but DO NOT press the plunger down. Allow the coffee to sit 12 hours or overnight.

After the coffee has time to brew, press down the plunger on your French press, gently. This will create your coffee “concentrate”, about 3 cups

To make the iced coffee: Fill 4 glass to the rim with ice. (use ice cubes made from coffee if you want to be really creative!). Pour ¼ cup half-n-half in the bottom of each glass, and up to 1 tablespoon of vanilla syrup (or syrup flavor of your choice). Top with ¾ cup coffee. Stir and enjoy!

Other mix-in ideas: flavored syrups (hazelnut, caramel, vanilla, peppermint), chocolate syrup, sugar, sea salt, fudge, and cinnamon  

Cucumber Mint Agua Fresca

Since most of the country is experiencing droughts and heatwaves (including us!), I thought a crisp, energizing drink was appropriate this week. What do you think?

How about now? Looks delicious, doesn't it? It tastes just as good as it looks too. Cool, refreshing... exactly what you need on a hot summer day.

The best part is the ease of the recipe... only 10 minutes from start to finish, but people will think you slaved for hours. This is a great beverage for impressing guests, or the in-laws.

What is this bounty of goodness, you wonder? Why, it's agua fresca (or fresh water in Spanish), commonly sold by street vendors in Mexico and Central America. In this particular case, I've made Cucumber Mint Agua Fresca. 

Frescas can be made from many, many different fruits. Maybe next time I'll try watermelon, or papaya... perhaps mango or pineapple. The choices are endless. And all of them are yummy! But for today, we'll stick with the cucumber and mint, since those are the ingredients I found in my fridge.

The necessities

The ingredients are simple: 2 cucumbers (plus one more for garnish), 12 mint leaves (plus more for garnish), 4 cups of cold water, 1 lime, and a bit of sugar (not pictured, oops).

To start, peel two of the cucumbers. I use a regular veggie peeler, it works great! Then, chop up the pieces and toss it all in a blender. Don't worry about the seeds for now.

Chopped cucumber

A couple other items need to make their way into the blender too: your 12 mint leaves, 2 cups of the water, and the juice from your lime. I don't get fancy when juicing the lime. I just cut it in half and squeeze it right over the blender. No worries about the seeds, either. We'll take care of that later.

Next step? Blend away!

It only takes a few pulses before everything is liquified. You want to let this mixture sit for a little bit, so all the flavors blend together. I left mine for about 10 minutes, but as long as you wait a good 5 minutes, everything will be fine. Anything less than that is asking for disaster (kidding, kidding!).

At this point, the mix should look a little something like this:

Blended goo 

Not exactly appetizing yet, is it? It gets better, I promise.

If you've left the green goo alone for a while, it can be strained now. You want to use a fine mesh strainer... trust me on this. The objective here is to get all the juice, but as little of the pulp and seeds as possible. Here's what mine looked like before and after:

Before and after

On the left, we have the green, slushy goo. On the right, yummy goodness.

Almost done now!

Here, you have a choice to make. You can either add in the last two cups of water, or you can add a little sparkle with some seltzer water instead. The choice is up to you. I went with still water today, and likely always. Bubbles make me sneeze.

You might also want to mix in a bit of sweetener. You can use sugar, Splenda, Equal, even agave nectar. Whatever floats your boat. I naturally gravitate to the straight sugar. A couple tablespoons is all I need, but you add as much or as little as you like.

Stir it all together, and that's it! Yummy goodness, ready for consumption.

If you want to be 'fancy' with your presentation, it's easy. Grab a hurricane glass, or some other bar glass. Use a mandolin to thinly slice your extra cucumber. Fill the glass with a combination of ice, sliced cucumber, and mint leaves. Top with the agua fresca, then add a lime wedge to the side of your glass.

Viola!

Cucumber Mint Agua Fresca! 

So, don't let yourself melt this summer. Whip up a batch of these babies and listen to your friends oohhh and ahhhh over your crazy culinary skills.

Happy blending!



The Standard Form:

Cucumber Mint Agua Fresca

Ingredients:

2 cucumbers, peeled and chopped

12 fresh mint leaves

4 cups cold water

1 lime, juiced

Sugar, to taste

For garnish: 1 cucumber, thinly sliced. Extra mint leaves. Lime wedges.

Directions:

Add the chopped cucumber, mint leaves, lime juice, and 2 cups of the water to a blender. Blend until mostly smooth. Allow mixture to rest for at least 5 minutes, and up to 30 minutes.

Strain mixture through a fine mesh strainer. Combine the strained juice with the remaining 2 cups of water. Sweeten to taste.

Serve in a tall glass with ice, sliced cucumber, and mint leaves. Add a lime wedge to edge of glass.