It's no secret that coffee is one of the most popular drinks, and it attracts people not only with its invigorating taste, but also with its sophisticated appearance. The art of latte art, or drawing on the surface of coffee, is not at all as complicated as it seems at first glance, because in order to create a stylish contrasting design on coffee foam, special coffee stencils have long been invented.
Coffee stencils are used by both professional baristas and ordinary people who, having mastered this simple skill, can delight their loved ones not only with a tasty, but also a very beautiful coffee masterpiece every day. All you need for this truly unique morning surprise is a set of coffee stencils and a bulk product that contrasts with the main tone of the coffee (this could be cinnamon, cocoa or powdered sugar).
Did you know? The art of drawing on coffee has gained such widespread popularity that since 2004, special championships have even been held among those who master this skill.
Our useful tips for decorating coffee using pastry stencils will help you quickly master this simple but effective technique.
Tip 1. What can you decorate with stencils?
Typically, coffee stencils are used to decorate a cup of cappuccino, mocha or latte. In addition, using stencils you can decorate all kinds of sweets, pastries, desserts, mousses and cocktails. Usually snow-white foam is decorated with designs, on which cocoa or ground cinnamon look unusually impressive.
How to decorate coffee using a stencil
Here are step-by-step instructions for you. You will need:
- Cup of coffee
- Milk
- Stencil for decorating coffee
- A small strainer (for example, for brewing tea)
- Cocoa powder
Stages of work:
- Brew coffee and pour a little milk into it
- Place cocoa powder in a strainer to make the pattern more uniform.
- Cover the cup with a stencil and sift the cocoa powder through a strainer onto the stencil. Remove the stencil and serve the coffee immediately.
The process of decorating finished coffee using stencils is demonstrated in detail in the following video clip:
Master class from a real “Barista”
Coffee is a special and capricious drink; only if you follow certain instructions can you prepare something worthwhile; the rules will also be needed when creating a drawing.
Latte art, although it requires knowledge and skills, is also a creative activity and requires constant training and practice. It doesn't hurt to have a mentor in this matter, so we've collected some unexpected tips and interesting discoveries:
- Almost all coffee drinks are based on espresso. Its proportion is small: about 30-50ml. You can diversify the taste by adding milk, syrups, spices, sugar, salt or pepper. But to get a really good drink, you need to take care of the quality of the base.
- In order to create 3D images in your cup, you need to create a thicker foam.
- Using a French press will retain the most caffeine than if we used other brewing methods.
- We use the pitcher so that both milk and foam pour out of it at the same time. Only in this case the drawing will be successful.
- Coffee brewed in a coffee maker already has foam, so the resulting mixture will have a delicate beige color.
- The higher the fat content of the milk, the creamier the drink will taste.
- The quality of water also greatly affects the taste of the drink; you should not use hard tap water, this can change the taste of coffee for the worse or completely destroy it.
Tip 2. What should be the stencils for coffee?
The diameter of the stencil should be slightly larger than a cup. Disposable stencils for confectionery products are easy to make: just print one of the pictures offered on the Internet and then cut out the light areas with scissors.
It is important that the stencil has a tail, by which it can be carefully pulled and removed from the cup. To make a reusable stencil, instead of paper, take cardboard and, after cutting, cover it with tape, or better yet, immediately take plastic, for example, a yogurt lid.
It is not easy to process thick cardboard, and especially plastic, with scissors and tape. Therefore, it is often much easier to buy coffee stencils than to make them yourself. Online stores today offer a wide variety of stencils for painting on coffee, including in sets. Their themes can be very diverse, and the drawings are specially designed to be easy to read and last a long time on the foam. You will find beautiful stencils in our catalog.
Tip 3. How to properly hold the stencil over the cup?
The main rule of aesthetic decoration is that under no circumstances should the stencil touch the coffee or its foam. If you have carefully prepared the coffee, observing all the proportions, then the stencil for decorating the coffee can simply be placed on the cup.
However, if the coffee foam is too voluminous, you will have to hold the stencil suspended with one hand while sifting the cocoa or cinnamon with the other. In general, the closer the stencil is to the foam, the clearer and more understandable the design will be.
Perhaps the hardest part about using a coffee stencil is learning how to carefully hold the design over the foam without touching it. If at first it seems to you that there is a danger of smearing the foam, when decorating the coffee, place the cup at eye level or try working together.
Types and groups of cliches
Depending on certain criteria, all cliches (not only for cappuccino) can be divided into different types depending on certain parameters. Models are :
- single-layer and multi-layer (number of layers);
- reusable and disposable (duration of use);
- metal, cardboard, film, paper, etc. (manufacturing material);
- for cooking, for design, for art, for production (field of application).
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Tip 4. How to help the drawing last longer?
In general, designs on the surface of coffee are short-lived, which is why such coffee should be served immediately after decoration. However, there are some ways to extend the life of the jewelry, and the main thing here is the thickness of the foam. It is believed that the most durable designs are obtained with cappuccino to which cream has been added - the thicker the better (you can even use aerosols from a can).
Instead of cream, you can add ice cream to a cup intended for coffee and let it melt slightly. As you carefully pour coffee into this cup, you will notice that the ice cream rises and forms a foam that is quite suitable for drawing through a stencil. If you have a blender with a whisk attachment, thick foam can be easily obtained from full-fat milk in just a minute on turbo mode. Having laid this foam on the surface of the coffee, it will not be difficult for you to draw any design on it.
Cappuccino at home
To prepare two cups you will need:
- Ground coffee – 2 teaspoons.
- Full fat milk -300 ml.
- French press (Turkish).
- Container for frothing milk.
- Submersible (cup) blender.
Heat the milk (the fattier it is, the denser the foam will be), brew coffee in a Turk or French press. Pour warm milk into a container and beat until fluffy foam is obtained. For cappuccino, take 1 portion of brewed coffee and pour 1 portion of whipped milk on top.
Latte recipe
Lattes are traditionally served in a tall glass glass. Pour the whipped milk into it, turn the tablespoon over and pour the coffee in a thin stream over its handle so that it slowly settles and mixes with the milk. You should get a drink with the following layers:
- Foam on top
- There is a layer of coffee in the middle
- There is warm milk at the bottom
All that remains is to decorate a glass of coffee with a design, insert a colored straw into it and place it on a saucer. If the latte is being prepared for the New Year's table, the edges of the glass can be decorated with sugar. To do this, sprinkle the sugar on a saucer, dip the edges in honey or sweet syrup, dip the inverted glass into the sugar and swirl until the snow-white grains stick, forming a beautiful “snowy” rim.
Watch a video on how to make a drawing on coffee at home.
Making mochaccino
To make mocha or moccaccino at home, you need to warm a tall glass goblet and pour 2 teaspoons of grated chocolate into the bottom. Brew espresso coffee, pour it into a glass with chocolate and stir. Beat the milk to 60-65 o C and tap the container on the table, depositing the foam. Pour the resulting milk into the coffee, filling the glass to the top. They drink this aromatic coffee through a straw, moving it up and down to feel the taste of all the layers of this delicious drink.
DIY coffee stencil
Stencils for drawings on coffee can be purchased ready-made, but if you want to get creative, you can easily make them yourself. To make the template you will need:
- plastic from boxes, thick stationery folders;
- permanent marker;
- sharp nail scissors (cutter, utility knife or blade);
- computer or laptop with LCD monitor.
First you need to find a suitable picture on the Internet. Then display it on the screen, cut out a square from a sheet of plastic, slightly larger in size than the image, and trace along the outline with a permanent marker.
If you have a printer at home, you can simply print out the design you like and then transfer it to plastic. After this, you should shade the places that need to be cut out, and, if the contours are complex, mark the jumpers with a marker. They must be left so that the template does not break later.
Read also: Fescue planting and care in open ground
Then place the cup on the plastic and trace it along the contour so that the image is in the center. When making a stencil, it is worth providing a small handle for convenience. The resulting template can be washed and used for decoration several times. It can be saved and used for sprinkling cakes, casseroles and other types of sweets and cocktails.
Development of your own stencil for drawing on coffee foam
Creative individuals often have a desire to do something extraordinary that others do not have and to show their individuality. You can congratulate your loved one on his birthday with a unique design or inscription by serving him a cup of coffee with a stenciled design for breakfast. Making your own stencil is quite easy, the main thing is to follow a few rules:
- It is important that the drawing is of a simple form, without too small details.
- It is necessary to follow the composition - the picture must be clearly inscribed in the circle
- Elongated lines should be avoided
We create drawings on coffee using a stencil
How to make drawings on coffee with a stencil yourself? After preparing the drink, you should choose the template you like and the topping to your taste:
- cocoa powder;
- chopped nuts;
- ground cinnamon;
- grated chocolate.
Place the sprinkles in a strainer, place the stencil over the cup and, gently shaking, distribute the contents along the contour of the design. The template should be as close to the foam as possible, then the drawing will be quite clear. It is important to ensure that the plastic does not touch the milk foam and coffee.
Moments of beauty
How to prolong the pleasure of a pattern created using a stencil on coffee foam? Usually such works of art last only a few minutes, but sometimes you can hold on to these moments and admire the picture longer to ensure a good mood for the whole day.
The following ingredients give the image durability:
- thick foam with added cream;
- slightly melted ice cream;
- foam from milk with high fat content.
Dense, thick foam can be achieved using an immersion blender by whipping warm milk in turbo mode. With this method of preparation, the foam will become the desired consistency within a couple of minutes. Those who don't have a blender or the patience to fuss with whipping can use store-bought cream in containers. With their help, you can practice 3D art and try to make three-dimensional figurines of kittens, fish or bears.
Have you ever been served coffee with a pattern on the foam? Did you like it and would you like to try painting on foam like this at home? Leave your message in the comments, and also watch the video on how easy it is to learn how to draw on coffee.
It's no secret that coffee is one of the most popular drinks, and it attracts people not only with its invigorating taste, but also with its sophisticated appearance. The art of latte art, or drawing on the surface of coffee, is not at all as complicated as it seems at first glance, because in order to create a stylish contrasting design on coffee foam, special coffee stencils have long been invented.
Coffee stencils are used by both professional baristas and ordinary people who, having mastered this simple skill, can delight their loved ones not only with a tasty, but also a very beautiful coffee masterpiece every day. All you need for such a truly unique morning surprise is a set of coffee stencils and a bulk product that contrasts with the main tone of the coffee (this could be cinnamon, cocoa or powdered sugar).
Did you know? The art of drawing on coffee has gained such widespread popularity that since 2004, special championships have even been held among those who master this skill.
Our useful tips for decorating coffee using pastry stencils will help you quickly master this simple but effective technique.
Tip 5. For those who want to create their own design for a stencil
If you want to create your own coffee design, remember that not every design will look equally good on coffee foam. When developing a drawing, avoid small details, since when applying the bulk mass through a stencil, they can merge with each other.
It’s better if your drawing is somewhat sketchy, but easily understandable for the person you decide to treat. Also remember that a cup of coffee has a round diameter, which means that the design should be evenly inscribed in the circle: elongated and inharmonious subjects should be avoided.
Added 01/13/2015
Basic techniques
Here we will talk about many techniques for drawing on milk foam, most of which are the author's own. But here we will look at the most basic and simple ones:
- Pitching. We use a pitcher, pour foam into the coffee, while creating the desired pattern.
- Etching. We use the pitching technique, at the very end we draw small details using toothpicks, brushes, and wooden sticks. Often used in trendy coffee shops, they depict pointed and graceful objects, but especially patient baristas, deciding to lift the mood of customers or cheer them up, create more interesting works.
- Mixed technique. We combine the first two techniques, add auxiliary products, chocolate glaze or cinnamon water. Nowadays it is very popular to use the latter; the foam turns brownish, and the designs come out more expressive.
- Volumetric latte art technique. This technique is an opportunity to express yourself in a creative way. Various figures are created on the surface (celebrity faces, animal faces).
The use of dyes and sprinkles is also acceptable here. Most often used by masters of their craft.
