Gahwagi Home Kitchen Recipe: Affogato

When you drink Gahwagi coffee, we want you to feel at home. As part of that effort, we’re sharing recipes that star coffee – or that make great companions to coffee!

Our first recipe is a simple classic that you can enjoy while sitting on a patio, just as the days begin to warm up: the affogato.

All that you need is a strong espresso and your favorite ice cream or gelato of choice. Purists might recommend vanilla, which you’ll see featured here – but we encourage you to try different flavors and find your favorite combination. 

Affogato is all about contrast and containment. In simplest terms, you’re pouring a hot espresso shot (or two) over cold scoops of ice cream – and spooning up the fruits of that labor.

If you’d like to elevate your affogato a bit, here are some extras to try:

• Place your ice cream dish or mug in the freezer for up to a half hour before serving.
• Drizzle melted chocolate and/or caramel over the ice cream before the espresso.
• Experiment with how you combine your espresso and ice cream – do you want the espresso to roll over the top of the ice cream, or do you want to make a crater for the espresso to be enveloped by ice cream? Which produces a more fun affogato-eating experience for you?
• After the espresso pour, stick a thin cookie or wafer into your ice cream. As the ice cream melts into the espresso, dip the cookie into that delicious puddle.
• For those who imbibe, add a splash of liquor to sharpen the flavor of the melted ice cream/espresso mixture.

Affogatos are lovely to throw together for an afternoon get-together with friends. The preparation time is low, the presentation is fun, and the flavor profiles of ice cream and coffee are hard-to-beat crowd-pleasers. Plus, the friend who doesn’t drink coffee probably won’t object to a scoop of vanilla with a cookie topper. Who would?