Look at this brown, velvety mixture.

Does this brown, velvety mixture look like it is made from cream or milk? Yes it does.

Is it made from cream or milk? No, it’s not. It’s actually made from instant coffee, water, and sugar.

Wowow. How is this possible?

Here’s how I (and science) made it possible.

Ingredients

• 20 grams instant coffee crystals (water soluble)
• 200 grams sugar
• 160 millilitres cold water

Instead of using 200 grams of sugar, I only used 180 grams because I thought that the absence of 20 grams of sugar would lower my risk of diabetes (it would probably help if I just consume everything in moderation though).

How to make it

First, put the sugar and coffee crystals into a mixer, and give it a rough mix.

Next, pour in 160 millilitres of ice cold water (without the ice cubes please, just the water).

Mix everything on high with an electric mixer.

You could use a non-electric one if you wanted to, and if you think your arm muscles are up to the challenge, but I wouldn’t recommend it.

The mixture frothed up quite quickly. This was how it looked after about 15 seconds of mixing.

And after a few minutes, this magical thing was born -- Dairy-free coffee whipped cream.

It was really quite incredible to watch all those super basic ingredients transform into this thick and glossy mixture.

It almost felt like I created whipped cream out of thin air.

Although I was already expecting it, my taste buds were still shookt at its creamy texture and taste.

They were also shookt at its sweetness.

I’d definitely recommend reducing the amount of sugar way more, although I’m not sure if that would affect its consistency.

The coffee whipped cream could be used as a frosting for cakes, tarts, or even just a topping for regular black coffee.

Nothing better than coffee topped with coffee.

The science behind it

So I first knew about this coffee whipped cream from an American YouTuber, Emmymadeinjapan.

As blown away about it as I was, she went a step further to find out the science behind the whipped cream.

This was what she found.

So foam is essentially made of air bubbles and water.

However, these two things differ in density — Air is light and floats up, water is dense and flows down.

And when the air bubbles thin out, they pop.

To stabilise the foam, the material of the bubble has to be thickened, so that the water doesn’t move around, and the bubbles are less likely to pop.

One way is to strengthen the walls of bubbles so that the foam will become more stable.

In this particular recipe, the microparticles of the coffee crystals help to stabilise the walls of the bubbles.

This stops the bubbles from popping, and in turn, causes the mixture to become a nice creamy foam.

Cool, now you can impress others with this dairy-free coffee whipped cream, and even explain the science behind it.

Top photo by Olivia Lin