Cooking for the Lazy: Dalgona Coffee and Mother’s Day Breakfast in Bed

With Ramadan now over and Mother’s Day coming up on Sunday, it is the perfect time to dive right back into your breakfast routine with a nice twist to your morning coffee. Celebrate your mom’s enduring love on May 31 with a dalgona coffee and breakfast in bed.

With origins in the Korean street food scene, dalgona coffee is a sweet treat for coffee lovers of all ages. The coffee does not actually contain any dalgona (honeycomb toffee), but derives its name from the visual resemblance. 

You also do not want your mom to drink coffee on an empty stomach, so you will serve the coffee with a poached egg and an orange and cinnamon salad.  

I am sharing the recipe for the coffee and the accompanying breakfast because it ticks all boxes for “lazy cooks.” If this is your first time reading the series, the rules are: Only use a couple of ingredients, Look like you made more of an effort than you truly did, and do not be a stickler for details.

Ingredients:

-Dalgona Coffee

2 tablespoons of instant coffee

2 tablespoons of sugar 

2 tablespoons of water

1 cup of milk

-Breakfast

1 orange

2 teaspoons of cinnamon

1 egg

2 tablespoons of vinegar 

Dalgona Coffee

Heat the milk in a saucepan. Put the coffee, sugar, and hot water in a bowl, then whisk well until a thick caramel-colored foam forms. You might want to consider using an electric mixer since there will be plenty of whisking at this stage. 

Pour the hot milk into a serving cup, and add the dalgona mixture on top. You can decorate with cocoa powder or coffee grains, and voila, it is as easy to make as any other coffee!

You can also serve it as iced coffee. In this case, all you need to do is replace the hot milk with a cold one and add ice cubes.

Pro tip: By now you know that my goal is not only to prepare something delicious, but to equally make the process effortless. In this case, however, replacing instant coffee with ground coffee will not work, the coffee must dilute in the water.   

Poached egg

In a saucepan, boil the water and add salt, then add the vinegar. The vinegar is an important ingredient to keep the egg together. 

Hold the saucepan at a 45-degree angle to combine the water on one side. Then crack the egg into the pan while maintaining the angle. 

Once the egg white has cooked in the boiling water, remove the egg, without breaking it, onto a serving plate. Sprinkle a teaspoon of salt and black pepper. 

Orange and cinnamon salad

Peel the orange without damaging the fruit, and use a sharp knife to cut it into circles. Place the orange on a plate and sprinkle the cinnamon on top of it. If your mom has a sweet tooth, sprinkle a bit of sugar as well and it’s best served cold. 

Place everything on a tray and you will be ready to surprise your mom!

I am personally more of a tea person than a coffee person. In fact, my notion of good coffee is hot chocolate. Yes, I am aware it is not coffee, and that is exactly my point, but for self-proclaimed coffee addicts, this dalgona coffee is a sweet warm hug in a cup. It is the kind of coffee moms deserve on their special day.