The Coffee Craze That Launched a Movement

Scan the internet while isolating at home and you will likely have come across some version of the whipped coffee sensation we all now know as dalgona coffee. The frothy coffee concoction that started as a trend on TikTok has since become a way for millions of people all over the world to get their café fix without ever leaving home. With a captivating creamy, dense whipped coffee topping spooned over iced milk and an easy recipe featuring readily available ingredients, it’s not too difficult to figure out how dalgona coffee could become so popular so quickly.

The process is a no-brainer: equal parts instant coffee, sugar and water whipped together until frothy. It’s so simple, in fact, that many have already mastered the basic technique and are on to a myriad of variations. The whipped coffee has been used as a topping for cupcakes, a frosting for cakes, mixed up with booze, and swapped out for chocolate milk mix and strawberry syrup. People are bored and they’ve finally found an easy, low-cost way to release some of their pent up creativity. Here are a few of the recipe faves we want to try.

The dalgona coffee craze originated in South Korea and inventive would-be baristas in Asia were among the first to start tinkering with the original mix, often adding boba to the iced milk base. Amy Ho of Constellation Inspiration took the concept about ten steps further when she conceived of these Dalgona Coffee Boba Cream Puffs. Using classic paté a choux pastry filled with vanilla whipped cream, brown sugar boba, and dalgona coffee fluff, she wows us with her inventiveness so that we don’t even begin to consider “why didn’t I think of that?”

Matcha aficionados are already well-versed in a light whisking of matcha powder with hot water for tea, but likely weren’t envisioning this Dalgona Matcha Latte from Candice Walker at Proportional Palate. The sweet latté topped with matcha foam uses whipped egg white or aquafaba combined with matcha powder to create a perfectly smooth and foamy latté topping.

We know we can always count on Tieghan Gerard of Half-Baked Harvest to come up with something brilliant and she doesn’t disappoint here! Black Russian scented with vanilla on the bottom, the addition of milk to make it white, all topped with creamy dollop of whipped coffee. Yes, please! When it comes to hot cocktails, Tieghan’s Whipped Coffee White Russian is what we want RIGHT NOW.

Even a passing glance at the glossy whipped coffee topping and your subconscious will start thinking: Dessert! Kim from Kickass Baker brought our latent instinct to sweet fruition when she came up with the concept for this Dalgona Coffee Chocolate Cake. She starts with her go-to recipe for dark chocolate cake, then tops it with a frosting made from whipped coffee mixed with mascarpone cheese, heavy cream and a touch of sugar. Oh, YES!

YouTube has been flooded (ha!) with posts of Dalgona coffee how-to videos, some with their own creative take on the basic process. This Neapolitan-like trio from Yummy gives us lots of options. The “whipped” coffee is mixed in a jar (using a process easy enough for kids to master!), then spooned atop warm milk that has been blended with either chocolate syrup, grated white chocolate or strawberry syrup. Simple ideas, captivating delivery. Watch the video and, as you would with the TikTok posts that preceded it, you’ll be inspired to give this new coffee trend a try.