Affogato is a coffee and ice cream dessert and I’ve taken it one step further with some cotton candy! Inspired by a dessert I had at a café, the ice cream is topped with cotton candy. When hot espresso is poured over the top, it creates a sweet topping for the ice cream. It’s a fun dessert you can make at home!
Have you ever had affogato? It’s a very simple Italian dessert where hot espresso is poured over vanilla gelato or ice cream. Sometimes other things are added to it like a liqueur, but one of my favorite ways to dress it up is with cotton candy! I got the idea after I visited Cafe Maji in LA which is a cute café where I first had cotton candy affogato.
Cotton Candy Affogato
You only need three ingredients to make this affogato: vanilla ice cream, hot espresso and cotton candy.
When you pour the hot espresso over the top of the cotton candy and ice cream, the cotton candy dissolves, leaving behind coffee sugar crystals that taste like toffee on your ice cream. I love the presentation and I love the sweet espresso infused ice cream after the coffee is poured over the top.
I’ve used pre-made cotton candy to make desserts and fun cocktails, but it can be really messy to work with and it’s never as fluffy as freshly made cotton candy, so I decided to get a mini cotton candy machine so I can make cotton candy whenever I want.
Nostalgia Cotton Candy Maker
I purchased the Nostalgia Cotton Candy Maker* after reading a lot of positive reviews and I’m really happy with it.
What’s really cool is that I don’t need to buy any special sugars for it! For white cotton candy, I just use regular granulated sugar. And you can put hard candies in it. Yup. Pop a few jolly ranchers, mints, hard butterscotch candies, and you’ll have a colorful cotton candy that tastes just like the candy you used. How cool is that??
I use my Nostalgia Cotton Candy Maker to make the cotton candy for this affogato dessert and I also use it to make my Cotton Candy Champagne Cocktails.
How to Make Cotton Candy Affogato
I love to make this affogato when we have friends over because it’s so fun to see the look on our guests’ faces when I bring it to the table.
To assemble the dessert, you will want to use wide bowls. This will prevent your melted cotton candy and coffee from dripping over the sides.
Just top scoops of ice cream with the cotton candy. I like to serve the hot espresso separately so my guests can pour it over the top of their cotton candy. I just tell them to pour it in a circular motion until the cotton candy is melted. The cotton candy creates a toffee-like topping on the ice cream.
I love recreating my favorite treats from restaurants and this cotton candy affogato is one of my favorites!
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Cotton Candy Affogato
Ingredients
- 3 scoops of vanilla ice cream
- 1 shot of espresso hot
- cotton candy
Instructions
- Scoop ice cream into a wide bowl (this will prevent your cotton candy and coffee from dripping over). Top with cotton candy.
- Pour hot shot of espresso over cotton candy in a circular motion until dissolved. Eat immediately.
The nutrition information provided are only estimates based on an online nutritional calculator. I am not a certified nutritionist. Please consult a professional nutritionist or doctor for accurate information and any dietary restrictions and concerns you may have.
My nephew had one of those machines and he liked using butterscotch candies to make cotton candy. What a fun dessert!
I’m really excited to try butterscotch next!