A keto tale of caffeine, coconut flashbacks, and divine dairy revelation.
And lo, the keto-faithful looked upon their overpriced almond milk and wept. But then, heavy cream was revealed unto them, and they knew it was good. And so Croffee was born, and the mornings were creamy and rich once more.
Thus sayeth the UnHoly Grospel of Croffee.
I think it’s becoming… No. Actually… it has become a standard now to ask ChatGPT or Gemini for answers. Simply because you get the fastest and yet probably the most relevant answers, shorter than if you were to Google it instead.
So, like any normal person who woke up and decided to go keto for life, I asked ChatGPT if I could use milk in my coffee.
“Nope,” it replied. “But almond milk is a great keto altern—”
Good Lord, the rattling begins, not to mention the incessant need to bold every 3rd phrase of words it can. I wish there were a switch that said ‘Short & Sharp’ in ChatGPT.
But I digress. Almond milk. So we check the stores, and gosh, the cartons were so damn expensive!?
Whatever. Almond milk it is then. If that’s what it took for keto.
Two weeks into keto and stock runs out. No unsweetened almond milk anywhere!
What!?
💡
For the record, I’m totally okay to have coffee without creamer. But my partner? She looks at a mug without creamer like it’s a hate crime. Not risking that kind of domestic unrest before 9am. 🤪
“Coconut milk!” says trusty ol’ ChatGPT this time (I’ll spare you the monologue).
Coconut Milk in Coffee?
If you grew up in Southeast Asia, or specifically in Singapore in the 80s and 90s, you’d have a distinct memory about coconut milk. Especially if you had to go down to the store to buy it. They didn’t sell coconut milk then. They sold desiccated coconut!
Complete with a loud noisy machine out back and a bunch of coconut husks lying around where the friendly store owner sits on a stool and masterfully takes a crack at a coconut, feeds half onto the machine and out comes your pure white fluff, sealed in a bag en-route to Mom central, where the transformation begins.
I loved it.
From grated coconut, to soaking it in water, to that final squeeze yielding a pure white liquid, ready to cook with.
Now that you’ve got that picture in your head, try another one:
Put that in your coffee?!
(If you cringed a little, we’re on the same page. Otherwise, you should stop reading now. Close this tab and never come back!)
Still here? Good.
Okay, it doesn’t work that way anymore. The fluff is gone (except if you count the fancy marketing bits on the cartons), it’s now just coconut milk, unsweetened, low in carbs, perfectly drinkable. On that note, I have not seen a single picture of a coconut on the milk cartons like ever! They’re all over the coconut water cartons but never on the milk cartons.
That’s something to think about, huh?
Anyway, here’s the thing. Almond milk isn’t really Keto. It’s plant-based. That’s why it’s everywhere. Keto just borrowed it from the vegan tribe.
But what keto is really about is fats, not so much where it’s sourced from. Almonds? That’s barely trying. Try chewing through a bowl of them and tell me that’s the fat bomb we’re all looking for.
Anyway, I gave up on the milk section altogether and went to get some cheese. And then I stumbled on heavy cream. Wait, why the hell not? Why not just use fat directly?
And why not indeed. As it turns out, heavy cream is definitely usable. It tastes awesome and you don’t have to use much at all.
I’ve used 15ml (1 tbsp) of heavy cream (30-35%+ fat), and it was magical! Velvety, smooth, just the right kind of decadent to make you forget you’re technically dieting.
And if you have a large mug to fill – or you’re truly missing some nutty undertones – you can add another 30ml (2 tbsps) of almond milk to it. Trust me, you’ll never look at almond milk the same way again.
Close your eyes, pretend really hard, and if you’re lucky, it’ll taste like oat milk.
I wish
ChatGPT finally got something right though. Heavy Cream wins! I do that every morning now. And it’s the cheapest keto-friendly latte you can get.
If we have Zoodles, why the hell can’t we have Croffee?
Go forth, my fellow Geeks; spread the good Croffee word. Have some while you’re at it, and come right back here and share what it was like.
And if anyone tries to stop you, just whisper: “It is written… in the Grospel.”