This article contains all the basic of homemade coffee recipes: how to brew a delicious classic espresso on the stove, how to whip up dalgona, what interesting nuances there are when preparing in a Turk or geyser coffee maker.
Try them all and choose your favorite coffee recipe.
In This Article
Conditions for making a delicious drink
Of course, the recipe for delicious coffee begins with the choice of the base product. Remember: in bean blends, Arabica is responsible for the aroma and flavor nuances, Robusta for strength and bitterness.
The most complete and delicious drink will come from freshly ground beans, and it is better to grind them by hand: this gives the ritual a magical touch and prepares you to enjoy your favorite drink.
The classic way: we cook it in a Turk
Sybarite paradise: morning, a quiet town by the sea, on the hot sand stands an elegant cezve with a long wooden handle, a mind-blowing smell emanates from it and a cap of beige foam rises.
Okay, instead of sand there will be a slab, and everything else – the Turk, the foam, the aroma – will be as it should be for true enjoyment.
Recipe for coffee in a Turk: basic conditions
- It is better to grind the coffee beans yourself, right before brewing. The finer you grind, the stronger the final product will be.
- Choose a blend with a high Arabica content (this is what gives the aroma).
- The roasting should not be lower than medium, and the deeper it is, the less acidity and more bitterness.
- Water must be strictly filtered or even boiled and cooled, but definitely not from the tap.
- The proportion is 1:10, for already ground beans.
- Place the ground grain and all the desired dry spices in a Turk. Pour in ½ of all the water.
- We wait until all the air bubbles come to the surface.
- Add the remaining water. If you want to cook with milk or honey, mix it with the second portion of water. The total amount of liquid should not exceed the level of the narrowing of the neck of the cezve.
- Heat everything on minimum heat for 1 minute. You don’t even have to put it on the stove, but hold it in your hand over the fire. Stir, check that there are no lumps in the mixture. Do not stir any more until the very end.
- Heat until the foam in the Turk rises. Do not let the drink boil, remove from heat immediately and wait 2-3 minutes until the grounds fall to the bottom.
In the coffee machine
An alternative method, lazy and proven by experience. Just take coffee beans of medium or fine grind and follow the instructions. The only thing: experienced baristas say that the best machines do not combine many functions. It is better to grind the beans by hand, and brew with the help of the device.
In a geyser coffee maker
- Pour water into the bottom of the coffee maker – up to the valve, not higher. Some connoisseurs believe that it is best to use filtered or even boiled water, cooled in the refrigerator.
- We place a filter on top and pour in freshly ground grain powder – there is a heap of it, but
- It’s better not to squeeze it with a spoon.
- We screw the lid on top, having previously wrapped the seam with a damp cloth: this will save you from having to wash the stove if it starts to boil over.
- Cook over low heat until the desired amount forms in the upper part of the apparatus.
Cooking on the stove: what’s the trick?
An electric stove is much more favorable than a gas stove: it heats up slowly and gives the ground beans time to warm up properly and give off all the flavor and aroma. The main thing is patience: set it for 15-20 minutes, or set it to maximum immediately and reduce the heat after 3 minutes.
It is more difficult to cook on gas: the heat quickly accelerates to the maximum, so it is better not to even put the Turk on the stove, but to hold it at arm’s length – otherwise it will definitely boil away. But, on the other hand, it is important that the coffee is cooked to the end, since it will not be able to “finish” on a gas stove.
Well, now it’s time to move on to the most popular cooking options.
Espresso Coffee: Basic Recipe
The base for all home baristas: the ideal portion, from which you will then prepare almost any option from this article. We have already told you how to brew, all that remains is to determine the proportions so that the taste turns out like a pro. A good option is 2 teaspoons of ground beans per 150 ml of water, or one and a half spoons per 100 ml. The drink will be smaller at the end, but of optimal density.
You can also brew espresso in a cezve according to the rules described above. To reveal the aroma of Arabica, add a pinch of fine, non-iodized salt to the cezve: its taste will not be felt in the final product.
Americano Coffee: A No-Fuss Recipe (Almost)
It would seem that there is nothing special about it: just dilute espresso with boiling water. Even the ratio of ingredients can be whatever you like: some people like it weaker, some like it stronger.
But if you do everything poorly, you will get a liquid without foam with a bland and flat taste, so it is better to organize everything according to the rules.
- It is better to take a finer grind. Coarse grind equals a watery taste.
- Choose blends of Arabica or Arabica with Robusta in a ratio of 9 to 1.
- Boiling water and espresso should be the same temperature. Do not pour cold into hot and vice versa.
How to mix an Americano?
In Italian, that is, at home: just mix everything, the foam disappears – well, okay.
In Swedish: pour boiling water into a cup, then collect the drops of brewed drink from the machine directly into it. The foam is preserved, the drink is not strong, and the most tsimmes is concentrated in the first sip.
The European way: put espresso in a large cup and water on the table, allowing everyone to dilute it as they wish.
Coffee Iced: A Recipe for Romantics
Ingredients:
- 50 ml espresso
- 100 ml boiling water
- 1-2 scoops of vanilla ice cream
- Chocolate chips for decoration
- Brew espresso. It’s a good idea to take a flavored drink like amaretto or caramel.
- Prepare an Americano by pouring espresso into a nice, tall glass for hot drinks and adding as much boiling water as you like.
- Place a scoop of ice cream on top and sprinkle with chocolate. Serve immediately!
Raf coffee: a recipe for lazy sweet tooth
This is not just a whipped latte, but a rich, dense, high-calorie drink, as it contains heavy cream and sweetener. There are a minimum of subtleties in its preparation, and the taste can be very different, so it is a pleasure to prepare it at home.
Ingredients:
- 1 serving (30–35 ml) of espresso, brewed from sweet varieties of deep or medium roast (amaretto, tiramisu)
- 100 ml cream with 20–25% fat content
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- Vanilla syrup (1 tbsp) or extract (4-5 drops)
- We brew espresso in any way.
- Combine all ingredients in a pitcher and stir using a steam wand.
- Warm up a cup or a tall glass a little and pour the finished delicacy into it.
Raf has several of the most popular options:
- Snickers: instead of sugar, caramel syrup, plus peanut butter.
- Lavender: dry lavender for tea (you can buy it in the store) is ground with sugar in a mortar and prepared as usual. You can add from a pinch to a whole spoon, depending on what taste you want to get.
- Raffaello: replace half of the cream with coconut milk, decorate with coconut flakes.
- Honey: simply dissolve liquid honey in cream instead of sugar.
You can also make raf with regular condensed milk, but then you don’t need to add syrup.
Coffee Latte: A Recipe for Those Who Like It Lighter
A delicate, purely Italian drink with a subtle bitterness. If you pour too much milk and add too much sugar, it will be boring and cloying, so strictly monitor the proportions.
Ingredients:
- 1 shot of espresso
- 3 servings of milk
- Sweetener to taste: cane sugar, honey, chocolate syrup, you can add cinnamon or other spices.
- Heat the milk to 60–70 degrees, do not boil it under any circumstances.
- We make foam using a cappuccino maker or a simple home mixer.
- Only now we brew the espresso so that it does not have time to cool down and lose its aroma. Pour the milk foam into the cup, leaving about a third in the milk jug, and carefully pour in the espresso, previously sweetened. Put the reserved foam on top.
Cappuccino coffee: a recipe for those who value balance
Not at all the same as latte or raf: much stronger, with a very solid and pronounced coffee taste.
Ingredients:
- 65–70 ml espresso (2 standard servings, mind you, don’t dilute with boiling water!)
- 30 ml milk
- Sweeteners to taste, but the best option is 10 g of brown sugar.
- As always, first heat the milk and whip the foam. Do not add sugar! You can use either a cappuccino maker or a mixer that you have at home, but it will be best to use a professional device.
- We brew espresso, pour it into a cup, add sweetness, and put milk foam on top.
Success directly depends on the hard work of the cook: if you are not lazy and whip the foam for 5-6 minutes, it will turn out very tasty and exactly like in Starbucks.
Turkish Coffee: A Recipe for Fans of Authentic Taste
This is not quite the same as simply brewing it in a Turk at home according to all the rules. There are several important nuances: you need to take a little more ground beans, be sure to add salt and sugar, and cook in several stages.
Ingredients for 2 servings:
- 2.5 tablespoons ground Arabica or a blend with a predominance of Arabica,
- a pinch of salt
- 1 level teaspoon of sugar
- ¾ cup cold settled water
How to cook?
- Pour the powder into a cezve (clay or copper), add some water and let the bubbles “bloom”.
- Add water, sugar and salt and place on low heat.
- Once it warms up, reduce the heat to a minimum and wait for the foam to rise. Then remove from the stove, count to five, and put back on the fire.
- Good Turkish coffee rises as foam above the surface of the Turk 4 times. After that, the foam is removed from the drink onto a saucer, the drink is poured into cups and the foam is placed on top.
Dalgona Coffee: A Recipe with a Clever Twist
This is a rare case when you need instant rather than freshly brewed tea (of course, of better quality) to make a delicious drink. Dalgona was invented in South Korea, and it tastes very Italian. Let’s try it!
Ingredients for 2 servings:
- 2 heaping tbsp instant coffee
- The same amount of cane sugar (you can use powdered sugar)
- 75 ml boiling water
- 500 ml milk
- Half a glass of ice
- Mix the dry ingredients in a deep bowl, pour in boiling water and begin to beat with a mixer at medium speed.
- After 3-4 minutes you will have a thick beige foam with stable peaks.
- Pour milk into glasses, add ice, and put foam on top. You can stir the contents of the glass before drinking: you will get something similar to a frappe. However, many people like to eat the creamy, rich topping with a spoon and wash it down with ice-cold milk.
Bavarian coffee recipe for true gourmets
Ingredients:
- 1 shot of espresso
- 1 tbsp chocolate syrup
- 1-2 slices of lemon
It’s very simple: add syrup to the freshly brewed invigorating elixir, mix in a pitcher, pour into a beautiful glass and add lemon. Sometimes it’s acceptable to squeeze a little lemon juice into the cup if you like it more sour.
A popular drink with various additives
Coffee with cinnamon: a recipe for spice lovers
The algorithm is quite simple, everyone is usually interested in only two questions: how much seasoning to take per serving and at what point to add? We offer three options:
- Grind 3 tablespoons of Arabica beans and half a cinnamon stick and brew in a cezve as usual. The spice flavor will be very intense. If you like only light cinnamon tones in the drink, prepare it in a different way.
- Add a pinch of ground cinnamon to the Turk immediately after the ground grains bloom and just before cooking.
- Grind some cinnamon in a coffee grinder or mortar, add a pinch directly into the cups and let sit for a few seconds to release the aroma.
Coffee with cognac: a recipe for adults
Of course, you can just pour a tablespoon of cognac into a cup with the finished drink – it will be good. But to make it delicious, like in the movies, you need to do everything according to the rules.
Ingredients for 1 serving:
- 2 teaspoons ground Arabica or a blend with a small amount of Robusta
- 200 ml hot water
- 2 tablespoons of good aromatic cognac
- 1 heaping teaspoon of sugar
- A pinch of cinnamon and ground cardamom
- Pour all the dry ingredients, except for half the sugar, into a cezve, add hot water, and cook as usual, letting the foam rise 2–3 times.
- Pour the remaining sugar with cognac, stir lightly to make syrup, then set it on fire and let it burn a little.
- Pour the alcoholic mixture into a cup, add coffee, and serve.
- Coffee with milk: a recipe NOT like from childhood
Let’s not confuse two fundamentally different drinks: coffee with milk or on milk. The first is familiar and simple: we brew as usual, heat up the milk and add it to the drink to taste.
The second is more unexpected: milk can be used directly during cooking.
Ingredients:
- 50 ml of water
- 100 ml milk
- 2-3 teaspoons ground coffee
- A piece of vanilla bean (optional, but recommended)
- First, pour all the ingredients into the Turk, add water, and warm it up a little.
- Add milk, put on the stove and cook as usual.
- After the first foam, remove from heat, take out the vanilla and pour into cups.
Important: milk takes longer to boil than water, so be prepared to wait longer than when boiling in water: 7-10 minutes. There is no need to add gas: this will ruin everything.
If you still want to make a morning drink with milk like from kindergarten – just add a generous spoonful of condensed milk to the brewed coffee. You’ll get the same thing!
Coffee with cardamom: a recipe for fans of spicy flavor
Cardamom is a very popular spice, especially prized in the Middle East and Turkish coffee shops. As with cinnamon, you can go one of two ways:
- Add the spice in powder form to a cup or cezve with the finished drink,
- Grind the cardamom seeds together with the coffee beans – 1 piece per serving if you want to achieve a noticeable, rich taste.
Coffee with syrup: a recipe with many shades
Syrup instead of sugar is a good idea, if you remember the rule: dry ingredients are mixed with dry, liquid with liquid. Put the sugar in the Turk right away, together with ground coffee beans and spices, but it is better to pour the syrup later into the cup, together with milk or part of the hot water. By the way, if you combine milk and different sweeteners, you will get hundreds of interesting flavors.
Which syrup goes especially well with cocktails?
- coconut,
- walnut,
- caramel / salted caramel,
- vanilla,
- hazelnut / pecan,
- Irish Cream.
Important! If you are going to make a raf, latte or other drink with added milk, you will need only a special syrup that does not contain citric acid, so that the milk in the drink does not curdle.
Answers to questions
How to prepare coffee correctly?
If you cook it in a cezve, do not let it boil or run away, but stir it only once – after all the ingredients have been heated.
What kind of recipes are there?
There are many of them, but the most popular are with milk: latte, flat white, cappuccino, ice cream glacé. And in Russia in the 90s, raf was also invented: sweet, whipped and very creamy.
What can you add to coffee?
In fact, there are many things. There are cocktails based on fruit juices and purees, nut pastes, spices, with milk, including coconut milk.
How to make your coffee tasty?
If you have quality raw materials, but the drink is still not as you would like, then the problem is in the water. Brew with filtered or even bottled water with a low alkali content – and sometimes it is useful to pre-cool the water in the refrigerator.
What is the best cooking method?
Here everyone decides for themselves, but so far no method works better than the good old cezve.
What is the difference between rafa and latte?
The first is fatter, more caloric, but less complicated: just mix and beat all the ingredients. The second is more delicate, lighter, made from milk, not cream, and it is customary to prepare a foamy cap for it.
Is it necessary to salt the contents of the cezve?
This helps the brew release its flavor during traditional brewing – but really, if you have quality beans and tasty water with the right pH, you can do just fine without salt.
What should not be added to coffee?
There is an opinion that it is harmful to drink it together with dairy products – but in fact it is not so much harmful as useless, because calcium from milk will not be absorbed. But in principle there is no harm to health from this. The same applies to products containing zinc: the benefit from them is leveled out if you drink coffee immediately after or during eating red meat, beans or oysters.
How to make coffee like in a cafe?
If you’re making cappuccino or something similar, you need to be patient and just whisk the milk well. There’s another recipe that involves taking instant coffee and whisking it with sugar and water, then pouring it into warm milk – but that’s a lot more of a fake.
Can ground powder be poured with boiling water?
In fact, yes, you can, but you need to take a coarsely ground product and water with a low alkali content. You will get a pretty tasty drink – although the Arabs will not understand you.
What is the healthiest coffee?
The best choice is natural, ground, black, without additives strictly in the morning. If this option seems too dreary, you can make macchiato with plant milk, but also do not abuse the drink in the afternoon. And yes, it is better to forget about soluble chemical analogues right away.
Which cooking method is the most harmful?
Unfiltered, when the grounds give off alkaloids to the water for a long time, is very harmful. These substances increase the level of “bad” cholesterol. Also, there is nothing good if you drink the brewed drink mixed with heavy cream and sweeteners.
What kind of coffee is best to drink in the morning?
Black, brewed in a Turk, without sugar or additives. However, any will do in the morning: even sugar will have time to be processed.
How to understand whether coffee is tasty or not?
Just forget everything the tasters told you and take a sip. If you like it, then it’s true. There are those who prefer the Robusta branded by gourmets. Some find the drink that is too sour or bitter for most people especially tasty.
What is the difference between a cappuccino and a mochaccino?
These are two completely different drinks. The only similarity is the presence of milk in the recipe. The algorithm for making cappuccino is given above, mochaccino is practically a dessert with chocolate syrup, chocolate chips, cocoa powder and plenty of syrup. Sometimes even with marshmallows!
Why was coffee banned?
As early as the Middle Ages, people noticed that the alkaloids contained in coffee beans were addictive and had a strong effect on the state of consciousness, especially if brewed too strong. It is believed that the first place where coffee was banned was Mecca in 1511.
What’s stronger, a flat white or a latte?
Flat white is definitely stronger and has a stronger coffee flavor because it uses two shots of espresso and a little milk.
What can be used instead of milk?
The most suitable ingredients are citrus juice or plant milk (almond or coconut).
What gives coffee its sour taste?
Arabica is responsible for the sourness, and its strength depends on the degree of roasting: the weaker, the more sour.
How to make sure that the finished drink does not taste bitter?
First, don’t buy blends with robusta: it’s guaranteed to be bitter. Second, don’t let the drink burn. Third, try Americano or mixes with milk.
What happens to coffee if you brew it too long?
You will get a burnt, tasteless brew. Don’t overcook it!
How many ways are there to make coffee?
There are only four ways: brew in a French press like tea, brew in a Turk, in a geyser coffee maker or a professional coffee maker/coffee machine.
How to make filter coffee correctly?
You just need to pass the drink through a special paper funnel: slightly wet the funnel, place it on the neck of the coffee pot, pour in the ground beans and slowly pour boiling water on top in the ratio that gives you the drink of the desired strength. Funnels are sold in specialized stores.
Why should you drink a glass of water after coffee?
This drink increases urination and can remove too much water from the body. To replenish the water balance, drink plain clean water.
Is it possible to brew coffee a second time using used ground beans?
This is completely pointless: all the caffeine and essential oils that give the enticing smell have already gone with the first extraction. The only thing you can afford is to brew again from the grounds that were just brewed and did not even have time to cool. But it will still not be quite the same.
