All You Need Is Melting Chocolate For An Insta-Worthy Cracking Latte

Coffee has long been considered an Instagrammable treat, and the cracking iced latte trend has made the beverage all the more worthy of your feed. Instagram user @yessidothecookingg has already hopped on the craze that originated in Korea, demonstrating how to DIY the interactive drink using melting chocolate in a reel posted June 14, 2024.

After transforming chocolate candy melts into a liquid state (we recommend using the microwave for this — it's one of the best ways to melt chocolate), the Instagrammer coats the inside of a disposable plastic cup with a thin layer of the candy. When the entirety of the cup's interior is covered, they allow it to harden in the freezer for 10 minutes. During this time, they shake up an iced latte. Once the 10 minutes are up, they pour the chilly drink into the chocolate-coated cup; however, before slurping it down, they squeeze the cup to break up the layer of candy, thus putting the "crack" in "cracking iced latte."

Make sure you specifically buy melting chocolate — like candy melts or baking chocolate — if you're going to try making a cracking latte. Unlike regular bars, this type of chocolate doesn't need to be tempered to get that satisfying snap when you squeeze your coffee cup. Candy melts are also available in several flavors that you can use to experiment, including pumpkin spice, which would be perfect for giving iced pumpkin spice lattes the cracking treatment in the fall.

Instagram user @yessidothecookingg mesmerized many with their recreation of the viral cracking iced latte. Several people specifically praised the pleasing, chocolate-cracking ASMR that comes with the drink — though other commenters pointed out that the interior layer of chocolate isn't exactly practical.

"What is fun about this? The chocolate lends absolutely nothing to the flavor profile because, well, it's solid. Seems like an enormous waste of time," one Instagram user commented. Reddit user u/Late_Fan_5725 seemingly confirmed this commenter's suspicions after making a cracking iced vanilla latte for themselves. "It just tasted like a vanilla latte to me," they wrote, though noted that it was still "cool and satisfying to hear the chocolate harden and crack when you press on it."

Unless you want to pick pieces of chocolate out of an empty cup of ice, it seems like these cracking lattes are purely aesthetic, so if you want to pair coffee and chocolate, you might want to stick to melting a chocolate bar into your espresso. That said, the concept could work elsewhere in the beverage world. In response to TikTok user @espressoyourselfx3's cracking iced latte video, one user commented, "I thought it was a peanut butter shake so now Im gonna do that but with a peanut butter shake." If that sounds good to you, why not try the trend with our chocolate peanut butter banana milkshake recipe?