Just under 15 minutes into today’s “How to Cook That” video, there is an exploration of how to make a coffee foam. When you whisk egg whites or the ‘aqua faba’ out of a tin of beans, the proteins firm up around the air and so it swells in volume and retains that. It turns out that instant coffee contains a concentration of gums that do the same thing and so we set to doing some experimentation.

The recipe was 2 tbsp of instant coffee, 2 tbsp sugar and 2 tbsp water, whisked up. Our best blending option was a stick blender but the blades did the job. However, I’m not entirely sure we needed the sugar so next time I’ll try it without. I think the sensation Ann Reardon was looking into was about making drinks but the best use we found was to serve with ice cream – a novel and pleasant way of getting an icecream coffee (and the icecream is sweet enough).

So that’s how to make frothy coffee in a way that isn’t just frothy milk. I suppose you could call serving it on ice cream a reverse cappucino (cold, with frothy coffee on top of the milk layer)!