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As a Barista, I have been playing around with different coffee flavours and creations. Now I have been thinking of also adding textural elements in the coffee. I was hoping somebody could give me a quick guide on how to make spheres out of coffee.

As I don't know anything about molecular gastronomy, I am not sure if things like acidity level will influence the creation of a sphere. I have also heard that the amounts of what I guess would be some sort of gelling or setting agent, need to be perfectly measured out to the amounts of liquid used.

Stephen Ostermiller
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RedFox
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1 Answers1

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I would try the cold oil spherefication method. Using agar agar as your gelling agent. The cold oil spherefication involves a solution which is in this case coffee that contains 1% to 2% agar (depending on desired consistency). The solution, which is warm is then inserted into a cold oil bath. Which will set the agar.

Why agar? Because agar melt at 85C. Making it perfect if your serving it in a latte.

You'll have to start by chilling your oil in bowl in the freezer for about 30 minutes. Lets say 1 litre. Next measure the amount of coffee your gelling and add your agar ( i would start with 1.5%) so for 100ml 1.5g agar. Bring this solution to a boil in a pan. Agar disolves at 95C. Keep wisking because if will catch. You'll see a change in viscosity, then you know your there.

Now there is alot of ways adding the droplets to your oil bath. Syringes and pipettes and so on. My recomendation is to use a squeezy bottle with a tin nozzle. Take your bowl of chilled oil and spin it ( i guess the choice of bowl and surface is of essence here). A round bottom bowl on an ice bath would be ideal. Now, gradually in a neat stream start dripping with your squeezy bottle into the side of the bowl. And there you are, Agar gellies!

Charlotte's cook
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  • Here is a detailed recipe that uses balsamic vinegar. Might help a bit more http://m.molecularrecipes.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.molecularrecipes.com%2Fgelification%2Fbalsamic-vinegar-pearls%2F#3040 – Charlotte's cook Sep 10 '13 at 22:55
  • This sounds really cool. One thing that I thought about when reading the balsamic vinegar recipe is that it says to rinse the spheres in water. Surely there will still be some amount of oil left on the spheres? This may be of importance to RedFox as his/her idea is to serve them in a coffee drink (at least that was my understanding, correct me if I'm wrong). – Henrik Söderlund Sep 12 '13 at 21:35
  • Some oil, yes probably. I have never used agar jellies in a liquid and dont have an exact answer for that. I dont image it will be noticable tho. Coffee has some fat content and there are definitely ways of emulsifying more fat into it. I came across a recipe for emulsifying coconut oil into coffee using a bit of butter. That could work well in this situation. – Charlotte's cook Sep 12 '13 at 23:30