Coffee ice cubes: Because you need more coffee in your coffee

As it starts to get warmer, you may want to opt for a chilled coffee in the morning instead of a piping hot drink that doubles as a hand warmer.

If you're one to brew your coffee at home before heading off to work, there's an easier way to make iced coffee. Here's how it's done.

Freeze your coffee

To get started, grab an unused ice tray and determine how much liquid it holds. To do this, use a teaspoon or tablespoon to completely fill one cube mold and multiply the result by the number of molds in the tray. Alternatively, you can fill up one of the molds and pour the water into a small measuring cup.

I used a tray which makes large ice cubes and needed 27 fluid ounces (800 milliliters) of coffee -- about twice that of my standard brew.

Next, brew the coffee. The most ideal brew method for this application is cold brew, as it is often brewed as a concentrate and lacks the bitterness sometimes produced by hot brewing methods. The downside is, making cold brew ice cubes requires about 24 to 30 hours -- 12 to 24 hours to brew and several more to freeze.

If you don't have the time or equipment for cold brew, any other brew method will work. You will just want to brew the coffee stronger than usual by using a higher ratio of coffee grounds to water. I recommend at least 1:14 (57 grams of coffee to 800 milliliters of water).

If you hot brewed the coffee, let it cool for about 10 minutes before filling the ice tray. To allow for volume expansion, don't fill the molds entirely -- leave about an eighth of an inch (3 millimeters) of space from the top of the mold.

Place the tray in the freezer overnight.

How to use the coffee ice cubes

After you've done all the work and have a handful of coffee ice cubes, there are several ways to put them to good use.

• Shaking hot coffee and the coffee ice cubes together will flash chill your morning brew without watering it down.
• Pour some milk or cream over the coffee ice cube for coffee-flavored milk with your breakfast.
• Use the coffee ice cubes to make coffee-flavored cocktails. This pairs nicely with whiskey, tequila or cream liqueur, especially if you use a lighter-bodied single origin coffee.
• If you used cold brew concentrate, toss a couple cubes into a travel mug with equal parts water before going hiking. You should already know the volume of the cubes, so multiply that by the number of cubes (three 100 milliliter cubes would require 300 milliliters of water). Larger cubes will take a few hours to fully melt.
• Throw a few cubes in a blender with frozen fruit, greek yogurt, peanut butter and flaxseed for an energy boosting smoothie.

There at tons of things you can do with frozen coffee, as well. For instance, mix it with chocolate, vanilla or blended berries and add a popsicle stick before freezing to make some delicious "coffeesicles."