Variations on a Theme – Keto Coffee Drops
Yes, yes, I know – Keto is the biggest, latest fad food thing.
Here’s the thing. Not every change of eating habits will work for every body. Yes, I split that word deliberately.
I’m not a nutritionist. I’m not a doctor. I’m not even a scientist. I am just a person who, when I dropped sugar and grains from my diet, went from 300 pounds to 200 pounds in a year. I dropped half my size, I was taken off my medications for high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and pre-diabetes. I had more energy and less brain fog. Every other eating program I followed would work – to a point. Eventually, I would get sick of measuring my portions, I would get tired of the substitutes for sugar, and I would go nuts and I would “splurge” and then feel bad and just give up.
I had to change everything I thought about food, diet, and losing weight to actually lose weight! I stopped constantly weighing myself, I don’t even own a scale any longer. I don’t care about the pounds – the numbers I care about are my blood sugar, my cholesterol, and my blood pressure. Oh, and what size jeans I can wear (I went from size 28 to size 14!)
Why coffee drops?
Well, when I first went Keto, I had a vicious coffee habit, and I was not allowed to use sugar OR use sugar substitutes at all. It was a cold turkey approach.
I find coffee to be a little bitter without something sweet in it, so I stopped drinking coffee for about a week. Most people can tell you they take 1 packet or 2, or maybe even 3 packets of sugar in a cup of coffee. Not me. 10. Yes, 10 packets of sugar in a medium Dunkin Donuts coffee (my order was always extra light and extra sweet). I learned a few things:
- I was drinking garbage coffee. Someone turned me onto single estate Hawaiian coffee, and I can drink that black.
- I was making my coffee wrong. I got a French Press and learned how to make proper coffee.
- I was going to the wrong place to get coffee on the run. Turns out the convenience store has better, fresher coffee than the two big chain stores, and it costs less!
Once I had weaned myself off the sugar-laden coffee, I started experimenting. I added cinnamon to my coffee. Then I got some cardamom-roasted coffee, and that was heavenly! I also added a little nutmeg, and sometimes I used some chai spice mix. Adding spices to my coffee made them taste a little sweeter without adding sugar.
Then someone mentioned buttered coffee – and that sounded odd, but when I tried it, I found it was wonderful – hot, melty, adding a little sweetness to the coffee. This year I was introduced to coconut oil and butter (or ghee) in my coffee, and oddly enough, it really DOES let me get through the first few hours of my day without feeling hungry.
So, here’s a basic recipe for making a coffee drop:
- 8 ounces of coconut oil, cold pressed virgin preferred
- 8 ounces of grass-fed butter, melted.
Get a silicone ice cube mold, and measure to see how much each cube holds. You want one that holds 2 tablespoons.
Melt the coconut oil and butter over low heat. Measure 2 tablespoons of the mixture into each cube, taking care not to add the solids that will settle at the bottom of the pan.
Set on a pan in the freezer and let the cubes firm up. Once they are set, take them out of the mold and drop them in a bag in the fridge. One cube should do an 8-ounce or 10-ounce cup of hot coffee. Just drop it in, let it melt, whisk it up and drink!
Variations:
Add 1 teaspoon cinnamon to the mix and mix well before spooning out.
Add 1 teaspoon cardamom.
1/2 teaspoon of each cinnamon and cardamom.
1 tablespoon cocoa powder (baking cocoa, not sugared!) and 1 teaspoon cinnamon.
1 teaspoon chai spice mix