The Tip Giada De Laurentiis Swears By For Delicious Iced Coffee
As the days start to get warmer, you may think about swapping out your hot black coffee for something cold and refreshing in the morning — iced coffee. Iced coffee can be as simple as cold coffee with a handful of ice. However, it's also a versatile beverage that you can add many different ingredients to in order to give it a special something.
If you want a drink that's a bit more decadent, Italian-American chef Giada De Laurentiis has a trick that she loves. As she showed on her TikTok, De Laurentiis adds a bit of melted chocolate to her iced coffee to incorporate some sweetness and give it a hint of rich, chocolatey goodness.
All she does is pop a cube of chocolate into an espresso cup, pull a shot on top of it, and then pour the chocolate espresso solution into her iced coffee glass. She then tops it off with her favorite milk, gives it a quick stir with a straw, and enjoys sipping a chocolate twist on a simple iced pick-me-up.
How to add melted chocolate to your iced coffee
To make this coffee, you'll want to think about what type of chocolate you'll use. A simple square of milk chocolate could work, or, for something a bit less sweet, dark chocolate might be the way to go. You could also use white chocolate if you're a fan of this creamy, sugary confection. Giada De Laurentiis uses a small cube of chocolate, but you can always play around with adding a bit more or less to get the right balance of flavor in your drink.
The next thing to be aware of if you're going to make your iced coffee this way is that De Laurentiis melts her chocolate by placing it in a cup and pulling a shot of espresso over it. This not only liquifies it but also mixes it into the coffee. If you don't have an espresso machine, you can simply brew regular hot coffee and pour it over the chocolate to melt it. You may have to stir the mixture a little to ensure that the chocolate fully combines with the coffee.
Now, from here, De Laurentiis likes to add unsweetened almond milk. However, you can use any milk you like. Or, you can leave the milk out entirely and just add ice! The trick is so simple yet so versatile and easy to implement for a fast and yummy drink to sip on.
Variations and twists to try out
Giada De Laurentiis offers her own twist for finishing her cool caffeinated beverage off — she sometimes adds a bit of homemade frothed milk to her iced coffee as a fluffy topping. She'll also sweeten her milk foam with a drizzle of maple syrup to make the coffee just a tad more luxurious. While this is one way of giving your iced coffee a bit of extra love, you could also add your own twist to the drink.
For instance, instead of using regular milk foam, perhaps you'll make a frothy cold foam out of skim milk. This is a tad creamier, thicker, and stiffer than regular foamed milk, and may hold up a little bit longer. Alternatively, you could just use a bit of whipped cream to get a different fluffy finish to your iced coffee.
Another way to mix things up could be to swap the maple syrup for a bit of chocolate syrup instead. This can make the drink even more mocha-flavored while still adding a bit of sweetness. Or, perhaps you'll add some chocolate shavings to the drink as a topping to finish it off. Whether you follow De Laurentiis's recipe to a tee or add your own twist, this is one iced coffee recipe that's sure to keep you refreshed on warmer days.