(Updated)
Save cash by making barista-worthy coffee at home (Coffee Recipe)
Okay, I confess, The Adventures of Mom is fueled on caffeine! Java. Coffee. Kaffe, Café. It doesn’t matter what you call that deliciously addictive morning brew that us mothers rely upon to help us wake up and give us the energy to keep up with our kids, as long as we have a mug of it somewhere within reach. I became Starbucks obsessive as a new mom. The coffee I knew in Greece was a tiny ceramic cup of thick sludge, bitter or overly sweet when loaded with sugar. That certainly did not tempt me, but when I discovered Starbucks, at it’s height of coffee shop popularity, I thought I had found heaven. Wow!
Mocha Frappuccino, the iced coffee and chocolate mix became my favorite. Back then I wished they had added a playground for kids at our local Starbucks, just so us moms could have our meet-ups with coffees in hand and kids in view. I was grateful when a nearby coffee shop opened up with a drive-through window (another boon to multi-young child families).
As the kids got older, so did the expenses, so my trips to my favorite coffee shop lessened, and then they closed shop completely, relocating to downtown and farther from my reach. I had to have my morning caffeine fix, so it was time to buy my own coffee maker and attempt a home brew. It is never the same, is it? It tasted awful, to be honest. Then I read about freezing leftover coffee to make iced coffee without watering down the coffee and then I added the chocolate syrup I used to make the kids’ chocolate milk and voila: an idea was born! The homemade Mocha Frappuccino using three ingredients that you already have in your kitchen. And this is so good! You have to try it!
Recipe for fellow coffee-obsessed moms (and dads):
Iced Mocha Coffee– a barista worthy designer coffee!
First step- save your old coffee! Anytime you make a pot of coffee and have some left over, pour it into an ice cube tray and freeze it. We like Hazelnut flavored coffee in our house, so it gives this recipe an extra dose. Like it stronger? Try freezing espresso.
Ingredients:
- Those frozen coffee cubes
- whatever milk you use (you can use almond or soy as well as substitutions)
- chocolate syrup (the kind you use to make chocolate milk like Hersey’s or Nestlé’s)
Using a blender, add the coffee cubes.( For one 8 oz iced coffee, add 6-8 cubes). Add 1/2 cup milk for 1 coffee. Blend till smooth. Add tablespoon chocolate syrup and blend again. Pour in a glass and enjoy. You can adjust the milk/coffee cube ratio depending how thick you like it, and the chocolate syrup to your taste. And if you really want that full coffee shop effect, go ahead, write your name on the glass! And enjoy!
Have a great week!
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