Coffee jelly is a Japanese dessert that is as delicious as it is easy to make. If you like coffee-flavored desserts but are looking for something lighter than coffee ice cream, coffee jelly is the perfect option. It’s typically served chilled, cubed, and topped with whipped cream, making it a tasty summertime treat when you are looking to cool off with something sweet.
In this guide, we’ll teach you how to make this simple – yet yummy – Japanese dessert. It is not very difficult to make, but it does require some prep time. This is a straightforward coffee jelly recipe, but it doesn’t take much to make a great dessert.
How to Make Coffee Jelly:
- 1 package of unflavored gelatin (or 1 tablespoon of gelatin powder)
- 2 cups of freshly brewed hot coffee
- 2 tablespoons of sugar
- 4 tablespoons of water
- Whipped cream
- Chocolate syrup (optional)
- Small mixing bowl
- Spoon
- Saucepan
- Whisk
- Shallow dish
- Glass
1. Mix gelatin and water.
The first step to making coffee jelly is, in a small mixing bowl, combine the gelatin and water. Stir until they are well-mixed.
2. Boil coffee and sugar.
Combine the coffee and sugar in a small saucepan and bring to a low boil over medium to medium-high heat.
3. Mix together and refrigerate.
Remove the coffee and sugar combination from the heat and whisk in the gelatin-water mixture until it’s completely dissolved. Pour the resulting mixture into a shallow dish and refrigerate until it’s set. This should take at least 5 hours.
4. Serve and enjoy!
Cube the gelatin into ½-inch chunks and serve in a glass. Top with whipped cream and chocolate syrup if desired.
Coffee Jelly Recipe Variations:
Coffee
You can use any coffee you like, but we tend to use stronger coffee than we typically drink. Once the coffee is combined with the other ingredients and chilled, it can lose some of its potency. If you have an espresso machine, that’s your best option but increasing the strength of regular coffee works too. We recommend starting with 1.5 times more coffee than you would usually use and adjusting as needed from there.
The roast level doesn’t matter as much as the strength, but dark roasts do well in coffee jelly due to their naturally robust flavor. On the other hand, we made a delicious batch of coffee jelly from a fruity light roast that was out of this world. It took way more tweaking and tuning to get the flavor balance right, but it was worth it.
If you’re making coffee jelly for the first time, stick with a strong dark roast or espresso. We recommend Lifeboost’s delicious, low-acid Espresso beans. Experimenting with a light roast is a fun project that might take you several tries to get right and is better saved for a second or third attempt.
Gelatin cubing
Think about how you want to serve your coffee jelly, and make sure you use an appropriate dish to let it set in. You can slice the jelly into whatever size you like, but the depth of the dish will control how thick your coffee jelly cubes are. We like chunky cubes, so we use a pan that is at least 1/2 inch deep.
Serving suggestions for coffee jelly
The basic recipe we’ve described already is a perfectly acceptable way to enjoy coffee jelly, but there are a few ways you can serve it to up your game a notch.
One delicious option is to serve the coffee jelly cubes with a glass of heavy cream or milk. The cream soaks into the cubes slightly, and the jelly cubes also dissolve somewhat in the cream making a delicious latte-esque drink.
Another fun idea is to serve the coffee jelly cubes in a small cup with some blueberries and raspberries. The fruit complements the coffee jelly’s flavor and is a healthier option than the heavy cream variety.
One of our readers, Brian, suggests serving your coffee jelly with whipped cream and a splash of Baileys Irish Cream, making it a decadent, adults-only dessert!
Easy Coffee Jelly
Equipment
- Small mixing bowl
- Spoon
- Saucepan
- Whisk
- Shallow dish
- Glass
Ingredients
- 1 package of unflavored gelatin or 1 tablespoon of gelatin powder
- 2 cups freshly brewed hot coffee
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 4 tablespoons water
- Whipped cream
- Chocolate syrup optional
Instructions
- In a small mixing bowl, combine the gelatin and water. Stir until they are well-mixed.
- Combine the coffee and sugar in a small saucepan and bring to a low boil over medium to medium-high heat.
- Remove the coffee and sugar combination from heat and whisk in the gelatin-water mixture until it’s completely dissolved. Pour the resulting mixture into a shallow dish and refrigerate until it’s set. This should take at least 5 hours.
- Cube the gelatin into ½-inch chunks and serve in a glass. Top with whipped cream and chocolate syrup if desired.
Nutrition
Conclusion
We hope you enjoyed this coffee jelly recipe and encourage you to give it a try! It’s a simple recipe, but it makes a fantastic dessert with minimal effort required. Coffee jelly is light and sweet and makes a great healthy coffee-flavored dessert that is refreshing in hot weather but can be enjoyed equally well year-round.
More great coffee recipes:
- How to Make Dalgona Coffee (Whipped Coffee)
- Delicious & Easy Coffee Smoothie Recipes
- How to Make Eiskaffee (Amazing German Ice Cream Coffee)
- Alliance Coffee’s cold brew coffee recipe
Featured Image Credit: successo images, Shutterstock
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