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Café con leche
Coffee with hot milk
Café con leche: strong sweet Cuban coffee poured into a big cup of hot milk
Every morning from Havana to Miami's Little Havana, breakfast is a big cup of café con leche with a length of buttered, pressed Cuban bread (tostada) to dunk in it. A moka pot of dark espresso-style coffee is whipped with sugar into a pale foam, the espumita, and poured into a mug of hot, lightly salted milk. The usual mistake is boiling the milk, which gives it a skin and a cooked taste; heat it only until it steams. Coffee contains caffeine, so this is a grown-up drink; children traditionally get a cup that is mostly milk. Chef's tip: whisk the first few drops of coffee hard with the sugar to a thick paste before adding the rest; that is what makes the creamy espumita on top.
- Total time
- 10 min
- Difficulty
- easy
- Serves
- 2
Ingredients
- ⅔ oz dark-roast ground coffeeespresso grind
- ¾ cup water
- 3 tbsp sugar
- 1 ¾ cups whole milk
- 1 pinch salt
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Method
0/5 doneStep 1: Fill the base of a small moka pot with ¾ cup water, pack the basket with ⅔ oz dark-roast ground coffee without tamping hard, and set over a medium heat.
Step 2: Put 3 tbsp sugar in a jug. As soon as the first teaspoon or so of coffee bubbles up, pour it onto the sugar and whisk hard for 1 minute until it becomes a thick, pale beige paste.
1 minStep 3: Let the rest of the coffee brew, about 4 minutes, until the pot gurgles; take it off the heat at once. Stir it gradually into the sugar paste so a light foam rises.
4 minStep 4: Meanwhile warm 1 ¾ cups whole milk with 1 pinch salt in a saucepan over a medium heat until steaming with small bubbles at the edge, about 4 minutes. Do not boil.
4 minStep 5: Pour the hot milk into two large mugs, then pour in the sweet coffee and its foam. Serve with buttered toast for dunking.
Nutrition per serving
- Calories
- 190 kcal
- Protein
- 8 g
- Carbs
- 24 g
- Fat
- 7 g
- Fibre
- 0 g
Nutrition values are estimates.
KrazyBadal
Good to know
- How long does café con leche take?
- About 10 minutes in total: 2 minutes to prepare and 8 minutes to cook.
- How many people does it serve?
- 2 as written. Change the servings above the ingredients and every amount scales to match.
- Is it vegetarian?
- Yes. It has no meat or fish.
- Is it gluten free?
- Yes, as written. Check the labels on stock, sauces and spice mixes, which sometimes contain gluten.
- What can I use instead of sugar?
- Caster sugar, same amount.
- What can I use instead of whole milk?
- Semi-skimmed milk with 1 tbsp cream per 240ml (1 cup).
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