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:
Morning positivity: how to decorate a cup of coffee
A cup of coffee will help you get a positive charge in the morning, but in order to pleasantly surprise your loved one ,
it is better to decorate it with an original design.
The delightful masterpieces encourage connoisseurs to reproduce coffee designs at home. The miracle of technology that professional baristas use in coffee shops cannot be found at home. But there are several ways to get acquainted with latte art without resorting to special equipment. To apply a design to coffee, you need to get high-quality foam. It is created from fresh and full-fat milk. It is better not to use a watery product. In this case, replace it with cream. Heat the milk to a temperature of 70 degrees and beat it with a hand mixer until it has a homogeneous consistency with a dense and delicate structure.
By the time the milk foam is prepared, the coffee should already be ready. Don't skimp on quality varieties. Cook in your favorite way: in a Turk, coffee maker, French press. After this, frothed milk is added to the cup.
1. Stencils
A popular way of applying a picture is to use special stencils. You can buy them at the store or make them yourself. A disposable stencil can be printed on plain paper and cut out. These can be abstract curls, waves, emoticons or graceful flowers. If you cover such a stencil with tape, its useful life will be extended several times. Remember that the diameter of the stencil must be larger than the diameter of the cup. Make sure that the stencil does not touch the foam or the coffee itself. In this case, you cover a cup of coffee with it and pour cocoa powder, grated chocolate, chocolate powder, cinnamon or powdered sugar through a strainer.
2. Coffee pot manipulation
Another way to put designs on coffee is to manipulate the coffee pot using only your hand. At the moment of infusion, simply imagine that the pitcher's spout is a pencil with which you are drawing. For example, to get a beautiful leaf, it is enough to move the coffee pot from one edge of the cup to the other, and then stretch a thread of milk from top to bottom, connecting the previously applied waves.
3. Toothpicks
Sometimes baristas use all sorts of sharp objects to apply drawings: toothpicks, thin sticks. Using a dessert spoon or a regular toothpick, carefully draw a design on the creamy or milky surface. If the foam is high, you can “cut” funny animal faces out of it using a toothpick.
4. Sweets
If desired, you can outline the contours of the design with thick chocolate topping or caramel. In addition, an abundance of confectionery preparations will help you decorate your coffee. Berries, whipped cream, small candies or marshmallows. The choice of jewelry is huge, it's only up to your imagination.
Unfortunately, the design on coffee is short-lived; it takes more time to create it than it lives. But it's worth it! After all, wonderful plants, funny images of animals, declarations of love will become the most sincere gift for loved ones.
Good luck with your experiments!
Author: Ekaterina Sokolik
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.
Signs about coffee
If coffee means a lot to you, why not make it known right in the kitchen? For this purpose, there are various wall decorations in the theme: from stylized coffee shop signs and beautiful images of the object...
...to posters or signs with apt phrases written in intricate fonts.
Interior stickers have the same function:
If you are the happy owner of some kind of slate surface in the kitchen, which often complement the Scandinavian style and loft, you can write about coffee yourself right there. Both beautiful and free.
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.
History of origin
Drawing on coffee began several centuries ago in Italy. At first, the images were mostly flowers or hearts. Today, this type of art is called latte art, and artists are called baristas or coffee bartenders who have advanced far in their creative work and can depict not only standard leaves and flowers, but also beautiful portraits and landscapes.
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.
Latte art
In order to attract customers, coffee shops are increasingly beginning to serve coffee with a pattern printed on the surface. The latte art technique is gaining immense popularity. You don't have to be a professional barista to master it. With a little effort, anyone can master this art.
Latte art is the art of drawing certain images on coffee foam. This original idea came from Italian monks. True, not many people remember this now. Creating beautiful patterns and original inscriptions on the surface of the drink has already begun in all corners of the planet.
Coffee art is an opportunity to show your imagination. Certain coffee shops even offer a unique service. The visitor shows a photo on his smartphone, it is transferred to the coffee machine, and this image is reproduced on the latte or cappuccino.
Essential Drawing Tools
When planning to draw on coffee, you must first prepare all the necessary tools. During the work process you may need the following:
- pitcher It is considered the main one among the instruments. It is designed to froth milk manually. In addition, it will act as a kind of pencil;
- salt shaker It is filled with cocoa, which is necessary to create an image on espresso;
- wooden sticks . They are used when making thin lines;
- cream injector. Used when outlining contours. It can be replaced with a tube with a thin tip or a ready-made can filled with liquid chocolate.
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
There are several basic techniques for making designs on milk cream foam.
Pitching technique.
The most complex and difficult to achieve method, in which baristas draw a stream of milk from the pitcher, making rotational or oscillating movements. The main elements of pitching are the heart, plant and fruit of the apple. Having mastered these elements, you can depict many derivatives.
Etching technique.
It is a continuation of pitching, in which, at the final stage, toothpicks and brushes are used to draw small details.
Mixed media
It is distinguished by the use of auxiliary products, for example chocolate icing from a pastry bag. Pictures are more expressive and clear.
Volumetric latte art technique.
Well, how to draw on coffee and ignore 3D technology? Japanese barista Kazuki Yamamoto raised this type of coffee art to the highest pedestal. Milk foam becomes a mini-sculpture under his skillful hands. Funny faces, cute cats and bear cubs, comic book characters look out of the cups. Often the characters strive to slip out of the container assigned to them, and a single composition takes up several cups.
