Make your own iced coffee

Summer holidays. That magical time where alarm clocks no longer exist and are instead replaced with the sounds of 2 boys fighting over the TV remote. Ahhh bliss.

As the school holidays progress, my need for caffeine increases but I'm not really a drinker of hot beverages and whilst I can appreciate a good cuppa I really can't get on with drinking hot drinks in this weather. A hot cup of tea cools you down? Give over. A slush puppie cools me down thanks very much.


But I do LOVE my cold coffee. Cold coffees and iced teas have been growing in popularity in the UK over the past few years and I love how accessible they have become. My favourite being Jimmy's Iced Coffee but I can't always get to a shop that sells them and my poor old purse needs a break this summer so what am I to do?

I decided to try and make my own recipe for iced coffee and thought it'd be a case of letting your normal brewed coffee go cold. But, alas cold coffee can taste bitter and lose it's roasted flavour so I did some research about 'cold brewing' coffee and it makes such a difference!

It's really easy to do and requires no special equipment (except patience) and I have based my measurements on my taste preferences so feel free to tweak them after you've made your first batch. These amounts make quite a bit of coffee concentrate and will last around 7-10 days in the fridge but can also be frozen.

I used of roughly 1:2 ratio of coffee concentrate to cold water for my ideal iced coffee and poured it over normal ice cubes but I'm going to freeze some concentrate to make 'coffee cubes' as this added ice watered my drink down once it melted. I also used evaporated milk to sweeten my drink which gave it a lovely latte feel and a little splash of vanilla syrup to up the vanilla flavour but you could add any flavoured syrups to make your own bespoke flavour.

Your finished coffee concentrate can be added to smoothies, milkshakes and anything else you'd like to give a coffee kick to. I often replace the boiling water in my chocolate cake recipe with strong coffee to give a mocha flavour so this concentrate will be a lovely replacement.

Just make sure you use a coffee you enjoy drinking hot as the cold brewing method increases the strength and taste of your coffee. I used a vanilla ground coffee I discovered in Sainsbury's last week from Beanies and it's sooo good. If you're local to Nottm and like good coffee then check out my review earlier this year here.

Cold coffee concentrate - this can be tweaked to make your desired coffee strength

• 90g/1 cup of ground coffee
• 1 litre/4 cups of cold water

1. Pour coffee into large container.
2. Cover coffee with water store at room temperature for min 24hrs (I kept mine for 48hrs). 
3. Strain coffee using a sieve and a coffee filter to catch all the grounds. This can take some time as the grounds hold onto the water so be patient.
4. Once sieved, pour into a jug and keep in the fridge for up to 10 days.

Cold brew method in action; before and after 24hrs in the fridge

Iced Coffee

• 125ml/1/2 cup coffee concentrate
• 200ml/3/4 cup cold water
• Ice (or your homemade coffee ice cubes!)
• 1 tablespoon of evaporated milk
• 1 teaspoon flavoured sugar syrup or sweetener (optional, I used vanilla)

1. Pour ice cubes into glass and pour over coffee concentrate.
2. Add water and generously stir in evaporated milk and flavoured sugar syrup.
3. Serve immediately.