Crema di Caffe
Crema di caffèKREH-ma dee kaf-FEH
A pale, airy, half-frozen coffee cream, sweet and intensely coffee-flavoured, eaten with a spoon from a small glass. Italian bars make it in a machine. At home the trick is the same foam that made dalgona coffee famous.
At a glance
- Coffee : sugar
- 1:6
- Active time
- 10 min
- Total time
- 70 min
- Makes
- 4 small glasses
- Serve
- Frozen, with a spoon
- Kit
- Hand mixer
Ingredients
Note: Ground coffee will not work. Only instant coffee dissolves completely and whips into a stable foam.
Method
-
Whip the coffee foam
Put the instant coffee, sugar, salt and ice-cold water in a deep bowl and beat on high until it turns pale tan, thick and glossy, and holds a stiff peak. Three to five minutes.
It starts dark and liquid. Keep going.
Whip 3 to 5 minutes -
Whip the cream softly
In a second bowl, whip the cold cream to soft peaks, the point where it holds its shape but the tip flops over.
Stop there. Stiff cream turns grainy once it is frozen.
Whip 2 minutes -
Fold the two together
Fold the coffee foam into the cream with a spatula in three goes, gently, until there are no streaks.
Folding keeps the air in. Beating it together knocks it out.
-
Freeze, stirring once
Cover and freeze for about an hour, stirring it once halfway through. You want it set like soft-serve, not hard.
Freeze 60 minutes -
Serve in chilled glasses
Spoon or pipe it into small cold glasses and serve straight away with a spoon. A coffee bean or a dusting of cocoa on top is traditional.
It keeps a week frozen, but let it stand ten minutes before serving after the first day.
Why this works
The coffee foam is the dalgona technique, and it works for the same reason. Instant coffee is coffee extract that has been dried, so it contains concentrated dissolved solids, including surface-active compounds that stabilise bubbles. Beaten with sugar and a little water, those compounds coat the air you are beating in. The sugar thickens the liquid around the bubbles so they drain and collapse more slowly. Ground coffee contains insoluble particles that only break bubbles, which is why it will not foam at all.
Combining that foam with whipped cream gives you two foams with different structures. The cream foam is held by partly crystallised fat globules that link together around the air. The coffee foam is held by sugar syrup and dissolved coffee solids. Folded, the cream gives body and richness and the coffee foam carries the flavour.
Sugar is also the reason it freezes soft. Dissolved sugar lowers the freezing point, so even after an hour in the freezer a good part of the water is still unfrozen syrup between the ice crystals. That is what makes the texture spoonable rather than solid. Cut the sugar and you get a coffee ice block.
In Italy crema di caffè is a summer bar product, made in a small machine that whips and chills it continuously, so you will see it churning in a glass-fronted drum by the espresso machine from June. It is ordered as a coffee in hot weather, sometimes in the afternoon instead of an espresso, and is very much the bar's own invention rather than anything with a long history.
Variations
- With espresso: a small cup of crema di caffè with a hot espresso poured over the top, close to an affogato.
- Lighter: replace half the cream with cold whole milk, which freezes icier.
- With condensed milk: swap 40 g of the sugar for 50 ml of sweetened condensed milk for a softer, more caramel result.
- Decaf: decaf instant coffee whips exactly as well.
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Questions
What is crema di caffè?
A soft frozen coffee cream served in Italian bars in summer, eaten with a spoon from a small glass. Bars make it in a dedicated machine; at home it is made from whipped instant coffee and cream.
Can I use espresso instead of instant coffee?
Only alongside it. Espresso can replace the water in the whipped mixture for more flavour, but instant coffee is what makes the foam stable. Ground or brewed coffee alone will not whip.
Why did my coffee cream freeze hard?
Too little sugar, or too long in the freezer. Sugar keeps the texture soft. If it has set hard, let it stand at room temperature for ten minutes and stir before serving.
How long does crema di caffè keep?
About a week in a sealed container in the freezer. It firms up after the first day, so let it soften briefly before serving.