The Best Gelato Flavors To Elevate Your Next Espresso Martini

Affogato is one of those dishes that sounds so foreign and incredibly complex to your ear that you may think it's near impossible to make without specialty ingredients. The truth is, however, that it's actually made up of two ingredients so simple there's a good chance you have them in your kitchen right now: ice cream and coffee.

According to Cafe Porte, one of the popular stories regarding the origin of affogato can be traced back to the 17th century, when a Franciscan monk blended vanilla ice cream with coffee liqueur. Other claims, however, put the invention of the affogato somewhere around the 1950s, in which mass-producing ice cream was more feasible. Whichever story you believe, what is evident is that affogato is an incredibly popular dessert. Eric Kim of The New York Times raved about the sublime beauty of the dessert, noting that even if the affogato isn't prepared the same way as it is in Italy (Kim, for example, explains he uses vanilla soft serve rather than gelato in his coffee), the combination of ice cream and coffee makes for a creamy, caffeinated, and frothy dessert on the road or at a restaurant.

Some have even considered the idea that if coffee can taste good in both a shot of alcohol and some ice cream, what would happen if all three of these ingredients were combined together? If that's the case, what kind of gelato would you need to get the most out of your espresso martini?

An espresso martini is a very basic martini: Its recipe requires only vodka, coffee liqueur, coffee, and some syrup to sweeten it. Although there is an almost endless amount of ways you can experiment with your espresso martini, there are a few gelato flavors that you should add in the next time you make your martini.

Food & Wine notes that the culinary team of Maialino in New York City prepare a multitude of "affogato martinis" in their kitchen, and have selected one common flavor of gelato for topping off their martinis: vanilla. This may sound anticlimactic, especially considering how ritzy these affogato martinis may sound, but vanilla ice cream and gelato actually play very well with coffee. The light flavor of vanilla complements the strong taste of coffee, while the coffee's sharp flavor helps to play off the sweetness of the vanilla.

If you think vanilla is "too plain" for you, Food and Wine also suggests gelato flavors like salted caramel, cherry, or even coffee. You're free to mix and match whatever kind of gelato you want in your martini. Strangely enough, you could even convert your coffee into a gelato by adding coffee beans to a basic gelato base (via Giada De Laurentiis on Food Network). It may not be as swanky as an affogato martini, but it would still be just as delicious.

All this talk about gelato probably has got you thinking: "Do I need to run and special-order some gelato to put into my morning coffee?" All you may have in your freezer is a carton of Turkey Hill or Breyer's ice cream. Is there any real difference between gelato and ice cream, and can you use both frozen treats interchangeably as you see fit?

According to Talenti Gelato, one of the differences between what we know as ice cream and what Italians call gelato is that gelato is made with a focus on milk rather than cream. Gelato also contains a higher amount of sugar to keep it soft and smooth. Ice cream is also somewhat higher in air content than gelato, giving it a lighter texture compared gelato's denser texture. Reader's Digest also tells us that while gelato is processed through a series of blenders, pasteurizers, and freezers, ice cream usually goes through a series of freezers meant to keep it cold and preserve shelf life.

With these differences aside, however, there doesn't seem to be any real reason why you can't use regular ice cream in your affogato or espresso martini. Food Network even suggests using common flavors like vanilla and chocolate ice cream as substitutes for gelato. While getting gelato for an "authentic" experience is recommended, you can use that regular store-bought carton of ice cream just as well.