DIY iced coffee

As you probably already know, I am a total coffee addict. And now that the weather is getting warmer I have switched to iced coffee, which sometimes I think I prefer to hot coffee. Normally I buy my iced coffee from Starbucks but, as I have been working from home most days (which is a 1 hour round trip to the nearest Starbucks!) I decided to look into making my own iced coffee from scratch. I ended up discovering this iced coffee recipe on Pioneer Woman Cooks (if you haven't heard of this site before it is AWESOME - Ree has the best recipes, and is super funny too!) Basically she shows you how to make a kind of coffee concentrate, which you can make a large quantity of and then refrigerate until you need it.

I used Starbucks dark espresso blend, and had the beans ground for a french press. Ree's recipe uses 500g and 8 litres of water, but I used a 250g bag and 4 litres of water. To make this batch (which I estimate would make around 40 large iced coffees) cost me £4 - plus of course the cost of milk. For comparison, a large iced coffee in a coffee chain is about £3.20.

You just half fill a glass with ice, add about half a glass of the coffee stuff (adjust it depending on how strong you like yours) and then top up with milk (I use soya.) Then you can add sweetener, or flavoured syrups to taste, although I didn't, partly because I like it plain, and partly because we didn't have any! Super easy, super thrifty, and super yummy!