Re-Constructed Shakerato
About 10 years ago, Mr. Willy Hansen who is barista trainer at Solberg & Hansen, showed me how to make a delicios iced coffee called Caffè al freddo Shakerato. He simply put some ice cubes in a shaker along with a double shot of espresso (at that time a double shot was a full 60 ml+ made on a blend with a lot of Monsooned Malabar, aged Brazilian coffee and robusta) with 2 teaspoons of sugar and shook the mixture for about 30 seconds. The result was a foamy iced espresso served in a wine glass. I was astonished by the refreshing flavours and also the looks and “wow” effect from the texture.
I have served a tremendous amount of Shakerato during my long barista career, but for the past 3 years I have been really disappointed by the taste of this once delicious drink. I don’t know what has gone wrong, as I truly believe coffees are getting better every year, my espresso is definately tasting better now than 10 years ago, but still none of the shakerato’s taste like the first one I ever tried.
I decided last week to start working on a better recipe. After some trials, I found that what I really disliked with my shakerato’s is the watery texture and the bitter foam on top. Therefore I decided to give the old drink a real makeover, and after 3 hours of intensive trial and error, I was finally happy with the result. The flavour profile of the TW Re-Constructed Shakerato is a lot cleaner and more defined shakerato, still with that kick that the old Shakerato once gave me.
Here is a general recipe for the “TW re-constructed Shakerato.” I recommend using a single origin coffee in order to get more flavour definition:
1. Make 0,5l filter style coffee of Cielito Lindo “espresso roast.” Add sugar to taste and 3-4 double espressos made on Cielito Lindo espresso. Add Gelatine or similar and stir. Strain liquid in to a espuma syphon and charge with nitrus oxide. Shake well. Leave to cool in the fridge.
2. Make 2 double espressos of Cielito Lindo. Pour it over some ice cubes in a stirring glass along with 1 teaspoon of sugar. Stir until cool (like you stir a dry martini)
3. Strain cooled espresso in to a martini glass
4. Layer about 1cm of coffee foam on top and serve.
There you go. A “Tim Wendelboe Re-Constructed Shakerato.” Stirred, not shaken…
May 9th, 2010 at 12:38
I can see what you mean about the slightly bitter foam. This one looks promising, and I really, really want to taste this! Do you serve it at the espressobar?
May 9th, 2010 at 12:51
Yes, we will be serving it during summer season. It’s on the menu today.
May 9th, 2010 at 14:00
Wow!
This looks really tempting!
Guess I’ll have to give it a shot…
May 9th, 2010 at 14:02
How long will the “coffee foam” last in the fridge?
May 9th, 2010 at 14:26
1 day. MAke it fresh every day..
May 9th, 2010 at 19:13
we do use liquid sugar cos mixes better with espresso and ice than sugar. also what we do is that we steam milk as for normal cappuccino, and on top of shakerato that is in martini glass, we put milk foma with a spoon and youll get a layer of hot milk foam above cold espresso shake and we do call it cappuccino freddo and it just kills, by look and by taste. costumers adores two diff temperatures at the same glass!
enjoy & al the best!
May 9th, 2010 at 20:01
Problem with sugar syrup is that it waters out the drink. I want it to be concentrated, so that is why we use solid sugar. It dissolves quite well anyhow.
May 9th, 2010 at 20:30
Awesome stuff! Love the idea, and that you are sharing it.
Two small questions, Tim:
1) Why would you use an espresso-roasted filter-brew for the base? Now I’m doing a horrible thing (theorizing before tasting – but the tasting will occur tomorrow, I promise!) but I kind of picture a rather unclean brew? What are your thoughts on this?
2) Are you using the gelatine for the sake of the texture, or to make the foam more stable, or both?
Love the blog post, and the fact that you are doing reconstructions like these. Inspiring stuff! We should see more signature drinks like these in competitions too. Coffee on coffee on coffee on coffee. :-)
May 9th, 2010 at 21:03
Hey Magnus.
Dark roasted Cielito – because of taste. The dark roast harmonizes better with the espresso and I use sugar, so the bitterness dissapears, and the drink gets a bit of a kick to it. Just worked better than the light roasted coffee.
We use Xanthana (texturas) to stabelize the foam. You can also use gelatine.
May 9th, 2010 at 22:05
have to try this all.
we, unfortunatelly, do shakerato by order, not in advance so thats why im using liquid instead of sugar, and double espresso, but you are right, its more liquid cos of that. but tomorow will be first thing to taste your way.
as for darker roast vs lighter…man, you are crazy! now i have to roast tomorow two diff ways just bcos of shakerato by tim… lol…
dont write another post for few days so we can play a bit with this all…
May 9th, 2010 at 22:26
Cool.
We do make this to order, except the foam..
Good luck.