Homemade Iced Coffee Recipe Ideas and Options

Everyone loves iced coffee in summer and many people love to drink it anytime, right through the year. You can buy your iced coffee at Starbucks or your local coffee shop. But you can easily make it at home from readily available ingredients. All you need is coffee, ice, milk, cream, sugar, other sweeteners and flavor cordials.

When you make it at home you can work on perfecting the recipe to suit your own taste and preferences. One trick is to use very strong coffee - at least double the strength of your normal cup of coffee, otherwise your iced coffee will have no taste.

There are four options for homemade iced coffee:

Hot Brewed
Cold Brewed Coffee Concentrate
Instant Coffee
Taste Treats and Additions

This article describes each of these methods with recipe ideas and options.

Iced Coffee is easy to make at home using these great recipe ideas and tips. Source: Public Domain

Hot Brewed Iced Coffee

Hot Brewed Iced Coffee is made by brewing strong hot coffee and chilling it using ice.The trick is to get it cold without diluting it too much. There are several ways of doing this.Brew the coffee using your standard method but make it double strength (two or more tablespoons; 1/3 of a cup of coffee per finished cup. You can pass the coffee through a filter twice to increase the strength. Options for Cooling the Coffee

To cool the coffee you can refrigerate it
Poor coffee over just enough ice - you don't have to leave the ice cubes in the coffee - pour through ice and strain out the ice blocks
Freeze brewed coffee into ice blocks
Use a cocktail shaker
Some people cool the coffee with non-melting ice or frozen blocks that don't melt.

Cooling Using Ice - The reason you make very strong coffee is to allow for some dilution from cooling with ice. Have lots more ice available than you need. The ice is used to quickly cool the coffee by contact with the ice cube surfaces, but not all the ice stays in the drink as it would cause too much dilution. Try to use medium size cubes of ice. Over-size cubes do not provide enough surface area to cool the coffee fast enough. Crushed ice or tiny cubes will melt too quickly and dilute the taste. Small cubes or cracked ice are best. Use two containers filled with ice. Each container should be large enough for all the coffee. Pour all the brewed coffee into one container and stir briefly. After about ten seconds, filter off the coffee leaving the ice behind. Do the same in the second container. A cocktail shaker is ideal for this. Put a few of the ice cubes into the serving glass and filter the ice back into it. Add the cold milk, cream and sugar, flavor syrups or non-sugar sweeteners. The other option is to brew the coffee and refrigerate it, but this seems to kill the taste. Or you can use the coffee to make ice blocks - just take out of the freezer and add milk cream and sugar!

Spice it up and have fun with it. Extend well beyond the usual cream and sugar ad try new things. You can add whole fruits to your coffee - oranges sections, grapes, cherries and strawberries, all make nice additions. Add spices like cinnamon or nutmeg. You might be surprised at how a sprinkle of spice can really boost the taste of an ice coffee.

Cold Brewed Coffee - Iced Coffee Concentrate

This is for the purists as it takes lots of time. However you can make the concentrate in bulk and use it for about a week, storing it in the refrigerator. Cold brewed coffee is strong, smooth and delicious tasting. This is the method used by most coffee shops. Many people claim that it is much smoother than the hot brewed version - without the acid and bitterness. Cold brewing was developed in New Orleans in the 1960s. To make cod brewed coffee follow the following steps:

Place a pound (500gm) dark medium-roast coffee in a non-reactive container, like a glass or stainless-steel bowl.
Add 2 cups of water and mix to ensure all the coffee grounds are wet.
Then slowly and gently add a further 8 more cups of water
Cover the coffee mixture and cold brew it for about 12 hours, at room temperature.
Next you need to strain the mixture twice - once through an ordinary sieve, secondly through a sieve with a very fine-mesh. You need to remove all the grounds from the coffee.
Transfer the cold brewed coffee to a glass container, and keep it in the refrigerator until it is used as a concentrate for iced coffee drinks.

You can buy various machines and tools for cold brewed coffee. This concentrate will easily keep a month or more in your fridge with no change in flavor.Now you've got a delicious pitcher of coffee concentrate. Pour some over an ice cube and enjoy!

Using Instant Coffee for Iced Coffee

Start with twice the amount of coffee you will normally use, for most brands this means 2-3 teaspoons per cup. Using a jar or other container with a lid add 2 tablespoons instant coffee. Then add 1 teaspoon of sugar and 3 of hot water. Mix to dissolve the sugar and coffee. Then add a glass full of cold milk. Close and seal the container tightly, and shake the mixture until it's foamy. Pour the mixture over ice cubes in a glass. Add more milk and cream to fill the glass.

Other Taste Treats and Flavors

Some ideas include cinnamon sticks, chocolate syrup, caramel or spices, which can be added to the hot coffee before cooling it down, should be added while the coffee is still hot.
Other options include blended fruit, ice cream or a shot of Amoretto or Bailey's Irish Cream.

Iced Coffee Recipes

Sweet Cream Iced Coffee

Combine one can of evaporated milk with one can of sweetened condensed milk
Take a glass and fill with ice.
Half-fill a glass with iced coffee concentrate and top up with the Sweet Cream mixture. Stir and enjoy

Frappuccino Recipe

2 1/2 cups low-fat milk
2 shots (3 oz.) espresso
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon. pectin OR 1 teaspoon of pectin and 1 teaspoon of arrowrootMake a strong espresso and stir the sugar into it. Allow the mixture to cool.
Add the milk and pectin and mix to dissolve all the pectin. Fill a glass with ice and pour the mixture into it. Alternatively add the coffee and ice to a blender bowl and blend for 30-45 seconds.

Homemade Mocha Coconut Iced Coffee

2 tablespoons sugar
1 can full-fat coconut milk (chilled)
2 tablespoons toasted coconut
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons chocolate syrup
1/2 cup coconut milk (light or full-fat varieties)
5 ounces brewed coffee, cold, or ice brewed coffee

Brew the coffee and let cool down to room temperature. Place the cold coconut milk and sugar in an electric mixer bowl and beat until peaks form and the mixture has the consistency whipped cream (takes about 6 minutes). Fill the bottom of a glass with 1 or 3 tablespoons of chocolate syrup, and then add ice cubes. Add the coffee, vanilla, coconut milk, sugar and mix thoroughly with a spoon. Serve using some toasted coconut as a topping.
Add 1-2 tablespoons of whipped coconut cream on top and another tablespoon or 2 of chocolate syrup. Drink up!

Homemade Flavored Syrups for Iced Coffee

Vanilla Syrup Recipe

Ingredients

1 cup sugar
1 cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise

Method

Combine the sugar and water in a small saucepan. Scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean into the pan and throw in the pod. Heat the mixture over medium-high, stirring occasionally, until the sugar has dissolved. Reduce the heat to low and let simmer, about 10-15 minutes. Remove from the heat, discard the vanilla bean pod and stir in the vanilla extract. Let cool. Store in the refrigerator.

Raspberry Syrup Recipe

Ingredients

1 cup water
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup raspberries, preferably fresh

Method

Combine the sugar, water and raspberries in a small saucepan. Heat the mixture over medium-high, stirring occasionally, until the sugar has dissolved. Reduce the heat to low and let simmer, about 10-15 minutes. Remove from the heat and pour through a fine mesh strainer to remove the berry solids. Let cool. Store in the refrigerator.

Coconut Syrup Recipe

Ingredients

3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup water
1/4 cups cream of coconut
2 teaspoons. coconut extract

Method

Combine the sugar, water and cream of coconut in a small saucepan. Heat the mixture over medium-high, stirring occasionally, until the sugar has dissolved. Remove from the heat and stir in the coconut extract. Let cool. Store in the refrigerator.

Caramel Syrup Recipe

Ingredients

1/2 cup water
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cups caramel sauce

Method

Combine the sugar, water and caramel sauce in a small saucepan. Heat the mixture over medium-high, stirring occasionally, until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture is smooth. Remove from the heat and let cool. Store in the refrigerator.