It's the coffee drink that's taking social media by storm, Dalgona Coffee! But why not skip the drink version and top this moist homemade chocolate cake with my lightened up version of whipped Dalgona coffee frosting!
That's right, I turned the famous Dalgona coffee drink into frosting and it works! Being a dedicated coffee drinker and creating this iced coffee with vanilla cream and a tasty cold brew mocha I knew I could come up with something. It took some experimenting and testing but I think I finally ended up with a frosting that can sit on top of a cupcake or sheet cake and still have the same flavor as your favorite Dalgona milk drink.I wasn't quite ready for how intense the basic mixture is which contains equal parts (2 tbsp's) of instant coffee, water and sugar. The first time I tasted it I thought there would be no way to tame the strong taste of the whipped coffee. I tried adding butter which ended up as a goopy separated mess, I added powdered sugar but that just made it so sweet that it was almost inedible. The ingredient that turned things around for me was cream cheese!
What is Dalgona coffee?
Dalgona coffee is the milky coffee drink made famous on TikTok and by a South Korean actor who said it reminded him of a favorite candy called Dalgona, hence the name. It can also be found as whipped coffee. It's easy to make with the hardest part having to whip the ingredients together to create that fluffy butterscotch colored coffee cream.
Making frosting from a Dalgona coffee base
As I mentioned before, the base for my frosting recipe begins with the same recipe you'd use for the popular Dalgona coffee drink. You need to mix the hot water, instant coffee and sugar together until light and creamy. I've seen people attempt to do this by hand but I definetely recommend using a hand held mixer which will complete the task in half the time it takes to mix it by hand, and your arm won't be aching so badly!The next step would be to tame the intense coffee flavor by adding the cream cheese and powdered sugar. This makes the final frosting end up creamy and light but still with a great coffee flavor!
Storing the frosting
Usually with any cream cheese frosting I'd keep it in the fridge for any long periods of time. This frosting will happily sit out at room temperature though for at least an hour and still hold its shape. Because it's spread on cake, you want it to be at room temperature for serving and eating anyway or the cake will become dry. I haven't tried piping it on cupcakes or anything with some height but it seems a pretty strong frosting. This recipe makes enough frosting to generously cover an 8x8 cake.
