For those who have caved into using TikTok, you most probably have encountered a video on how to make a toffee-colored froth that’s placed on top of iced milk. That homemade coffee that looks like it was made by a barista from a fancy third-wave coffee shop is called “dalgona coffee.”
What is dalgona coffee?
Dalgona coffee is named after a famous Korean street candy of the same name—in Korea, they call it ppopgi. The dalgona as a candy is similar to toffee or honeycomb that’s placed on a stick, but the now-viral caffeinated version as seen on TikTok and even on YouTube food channels is a three-ingredient sweet coffee-based froth you put on top of iced milk.
You can think of it as a reverse latte where the coffee is replaced by iced milk, while the steamed milk is replaced by the coffee froth. If you like your coffee sweet and milky, you should definitely try making it at home!
How to make dalgona coffee:
All it takes is three ingredients: instant coffee, sugar, and hot water—how much more simple can it get? All of the ingredients should come in equal parts: two tablespoons of instant coffee, two tablespoons of white sugar, and two tablespoons of hot water.
It is important to use instant coffee (coffee crystals) because they are soluble in water, and it is important to use white sugar because it helps it emulsify into the cloud-like consistency that it should have.
To make dalgona coffee: You mix the instant coffee, white sugar, and hot water together and whisk them until it becomes into a cloud-like toffee-colored cloud. You can whisk manually, but it would be easier to use an electronic hand mixer. Other dalgona coffee recipes say that mixing will only take 5 minutes, but ours was 15 minutes when done by manually whisking.
Once the fluffy coffee froth is ready, you can place a dollop of it on top of iced milk. You have successfully made dalgona coffee at home.
