Vanilla Iced Coffee Recipe

Vanilla is one of the most popular and ubiquitous flavors consumed. Many times people don’t even realize that some of their favorite desserts, candies, and drinks contain vanilla. Coffee drinkers are probably familiar with mixing coffee and vanilla but a common problem is that the coffee flavor can mask the vanilla.

This happens for several reasons but is mostly related to using artificial vanilla flavor which has a weaker flavor compared to the high priced natural vanilla. Vanilla flavor comes from a tropical orchid vine from which the seed pod commonly called a vanilla bean is harvested and fermented for its unique flavor.

Vanilla Iced Coffee Recipe Instructions

1. Brew four cups of regular strength coffee or use cold brewed coffee, and then dissolve about ¼ a cup of sugar in the coffee. You might find that you desire a bolder coffee flavor so you can either substitute with double strength coffee or espresso concentrate.
2. Once the sugar is dissolved the coffee needs to be cold so place it in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes. This step can be skipped if using cold brewed coffee.
3. Next, stir in about ½ teaspoon of natural vanilla extract into the chilled coffee. If you have some vanilla bean pods at home then you can steep four vanilla beans in 1 cup of cream or milk.
4. Just pour the milk in a pan with the vanilla beans then heat until the milk starts to simmer, then remove from heat. Let it sit for 20 minutes and mix with the coffee.
5. Finally, evenly divide 3 cups of crushed ice in four glasses and then pour the coffee mixture into each glass. Each serving from this vanilla iced coffee recipe can be topped with a small scoop of vanilla ice cream for added flavor.