Cold percolated coffee with Amarula spheres

Sometimes my caffeine dependency gets too much, and gets the better of me, at which point I need something stronger, smoother, and more refreshing.

Cold percolated coffee using a standard percolator "Macgyver" style.
Cold percolated coffee using a standard percolator “Macgyver” style.

This is where cold percolated coffee comes in. Imagine if coffee wasn’t as bitter, didn’t need milk or sugar, and no risk of burning yourself with pesky spills.

Having none of the fancy equipment needed, I decided to improvise. It might be insightful to mention that even in pre-school my nickname was “Macgyver”.  The simplest way I could find was to take a normal coffee percolator and invert it with ice in the water compartment, then take out the coffee cup filter and place it underneath so that the melted ice water would slowly drip into your coffee grinds, filter, and collect into a glass. This is not an easy road to take for coffee, and took a good few hours to produce a single cup.

With a little rearrangement of my coffee percolator I was able to have produce a smooth tasting ice percolated coffee. Took hours though...
With a little rearrangement of my coffee percolator I was able to have produce a smooth tasting ice percolated coffee. Took hours though…

This was all fun and all, but I wanted more.

We have just had a house-warming party and someone gave us a bottle of Amarula. After having a somewhat misspent childhood, even the thought of this drink has since sent shivers down my body, accompanied by vivid flash-backs. That was until I had a little test-sip of marvellous stuff. But still, you have to ease your way back into the Amarula good books, and what better way than to spherify it. Cold oil spherification to be precise.

Soft little spheres of Amarula waiting happily to be devoured.
Soft little spheres of Amarula waiting happily to be devoured.

The process is simple enough:

  1. Melt agar into the liquid you want to spherify.
  2. Using a syringe/pipette, drip the liquid into oil that has been chilled in the freezer.
  3. Rinse your spheres in warm water to remove the oil. 

The ratio I found that worked best to give the spheres a subtle firmness was 2/3 ts agar powder : 65ml Amarula

With the mildly demonic looking bunny-of-Amarula-past appeased, here is my cold percolated coffee with Amarula spheres.
With the mildly demonic looking bunny-of-Amarula-past appeased, here is my cold percolated coffee with Amarula spheres.

(note: 1/3 ts agar :65ml Amarula makes for a really great Amarula Panna Cotta!)