A lovely independent coffee shop a few neighborhoods away is one of my favorite places to visit. It is near Warner Bro.’s studios and attracts a lot of “industry types”. If you’re not familiar with that term, it basically means that there are lots of actors, executives and, above all, screenwriters at this place. I should say that many are actually aspiring screenwriters, as they are not paid for their work (yet). The coffee shopt has a great location, good food and excellent drinks, but I love being able to casually evesdrop on random plot developments or scripts-in-progress while I sip my coffee.
I don’t get over there as much as I’d like, so I thought I would try to recreate one of my favorite summer drinks at home. Yes, it’s actually called a Mochaccino and it comes hot, over ice or blended with ice. The menu board lists its components as: coffee, espresso, cocoa and cinnamon. This was my starting point.
It seemed likely that the greatest amount of coffee was present in the drink and the least amount of cinnamon. It tastes mostly of coffee, with a hint of spice, so I tried not to make the cocoa or cinnamon too agressive. Though the drink is not too sweet, it tastes creamy; it uses sugar to create the texture and not milk.
While I cannot say that this is exactly the same, it’s pretty darn good. It is more refreshing than many blended coffee drinks because it doesn’t have the heaviness of dairy to weigh it down into dessert territory. And, it’s a great thing to do with leftover coffee.
Ice Blended Mochaccino
Fill up one large cup (16 oz.) with ice and pour strong, cool coffee (add a shot of espresso if you have it) over ice to the top of the cup. Pour this into a blender. Add 1/2 tsp vanilla extract, 1 tsp cocoa powder, 1/4 tsp cinnamon and 2 tbsp sugar. Blend until smooth. Whipped cream topping optional.
Makes 2 servings.
cookie jill
August 14, 2005hmmm…could that be Priscilla’s Coffee?
Nic
August 14, 2005Bingo! I love the drinks at Priscilla’s. But, since reviews aren’t usually my thing here, I opted not to put the name in my post. =)
Rainey
August 14, 2005That’s good to know. I’m not in that area a lot but when I am I always try to stop at Emon on Pass north of Riverside for lunch and making a second stop at Pricilla’s could be interesting.
Thanks for the tip.
Nic
August 14, 2005Rainey – I hope you like it. They have lots of good, flavored coffee combinations if you like to go for sweeter drinks, too.
Elise
August 14, 2005Any tips on blending? I’ve tried to make my own blended coffee drinks in the past, and the ice and coffee just won’t mix well – I usually end up with chunky ice with really cold coffee at the bottom.
Joe
August 14, 2005Recipe looks tasty! I can’t get my ice to blend like in the stores either Elise – maybe it has something to do with the ice? That and they probably have much powerful blenders.
Nic
August 14, 2005Elise and Joe – I, too, had problems blending when I didn’t add sugar or add enough sugar. Apparently, milk, coffee and ice alone are not enough to create a creamy drink. Adding sugar has *really* improved the quality of my home-blended drinks.
Cathy
August 14, 2005Hi Nic – this sounds great – especially with the horrible hot and humid weather we’ve been having! I’ve never tried making something like this myself, but it sounds easy and delicious!
Rainey
August 14, 2005Elise- I think most of the places that do blended drinks use ice makers that formulate a particularly “airy” ice in particles much smaller than the ice cubes we have in our freezers.
I don’t have any experience making blended drinks (I’m bigger on just iced tea or mochas) but I’d start by running the ice cubes through the “crushed” cycle if you’ve got an ice machine in your freezer. I bet it would stand better odds of whirling up before it melted. Maybe cooling off the liquid ingredients before attempting to blend it would help too. I know that’s an important step in churning ice cream.
Elise
August 14, 2005Thanks everyone! I usually use Sweet and Low or some other artificial sweetener, so that could explain it. After looking around some, I found a suggestion to blend some, refreeze, then blend again. I’m going to try that next time.
SweetKali
August 14, 2005Ah, Priscilla’s, such memories. I used to sneak off the WB lot to grab a latte and sneak back on before anyone noticed I was gone. I’ve spent many a hour there studying algebra, but now, I live in Glendale and work in Northridge..sigh….oh well, there’s always the weekend.
Nic
August 15, 2005Cathy – It is easy. I’m a big coffee drinker and this is a nice change from my usual hot favorite.
Rainey – Having worked in a coffee shop where we made blended drinks, I don’t think there was anything special about the ice other than the fact that it was already in quite small cubes. Crushing it before hand is a great tip, either in a blender or just in a plastic bag. Chilling the coffee before hand will give you a better flavor because the melting ice won’t water down your mix.
Elise – I hope it works! If not, I guess you’ll just have to compromise once in a while and go for real sugar. =)
Sweetkali – I definately sympathise. I usually go there when I want to hang out or get together with friends, rather than running in and out with a cup of coffee. It has a great atmosphere.
Pam
July 7, 2006With a little bit of planning. . . Make extra coffee in the morning and cool. Make a whole pot of coffee and freeze into ice cubes: prevents watered-down drinks!
B.A.K.E
August 9, 2011Hi, I tried making this drink and it tasted nice. I could taste the cinnamon in it. Hope you won’t mind me posting this recipe on my blog. Oh, I had also linked you to my blog 🙂
Thanks!
[B.A.K.E]