Friday, June 24, 2011

Iced Capps the Easy (and Cheap) Way

Looking for an easy but luscious alternative to those yummy but oh-so-pricey iced coffee confections at your favorite coffee shop? Here's one for you - a rich, chocolately iced "cappuccino" with little fuss, that makes a family-sized blenderful of summertime yumminess! :) We threw together this recipe yesterday, on a hot, muggy afternoon, and we all loved it. With these proportions, it is truly more like a nice, cold, rich cappuccino, but feel free to increase the ice and/or ice cream proportions in the recipe if you want it to be more like a milkshake. And of course, you can scale down the ingredients if you only want to serve one or two. Either way - YUM!

Blender Iced Cappuccino

-4  (6 ounces each) cups VERY STRONG coffee (I used decaf coffee, and about 2 tbsp of grounds per coffee-pot-cup of water. Coffee pots usually measure cups in 6 oz servings, not the 8 oz of a measuring cup.)
-1/2 cup instant chocolate milk powder (I'm sure chocolate syrup would work just as well :) )
-1 quart vanilla ice cream
-Handful of ice cubes
-Extra ice cubes for each glass

 Combine the first four ingredients in a large blender; blend until very smooth. Pour into ice-filled glasses and serve. Serves approximately 4-6 adults.

Any extra cappuccino can be chilled in the fridge until needed; it will be of a slightly thinner consistency since the ice cream and ice cubes will have melted, but it will be fantastic over ice nonetheless. :)

*Out of chocolate milk powder or syrup? No vanilla ice cream? Just substitute chocolate ice cream instead. :)

3 comments:

  1. Cannot wait to try this! I hope the chocolate milk powder is allergy friendly. I wonder if just cocoa powder and sugar would substitute--what do you think?

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  2. Cocoa powder won't dissolve in the blender as well... you'll have lumps of it still in the drink. :( You could mix it first with a bit of scalding milk and sugar to dissolve it, as you would for hot cocoa (just use about 1/2 cup milk) - or to keep things simpler, just use corn-free chocolate ice cream instead!
    And of course... while the new baby was craving mocha, which is why I included the chocolate..... you could just leave out the chocolate completely and use simple vanilla ice cream, or any other basic flavor that goes well with coffee. It would still be delicious!

    (Also, I've decided that this recipe is so good, I HAVE to keep ice cream around in the summertime. ;) We usually make ice cream last a long time... but with recipes like this, it won't be lasting as long, ha ha! ;) )

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  3. This sounds so tasty and refreshing, Natalie. I stopped by to thank you for following me. :-)

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