The Best of Fall: Homemade Pumpkin Spice Syrup (for coffee treats)

I’ve been all kinds of absent from my blog.  Frankly, I’m slammed at work and I am doing my best to keep my head above water.  I may not have been posting, but I’ve been building a steady collection of things to post.  There are good things to come.

I don’t know about you but I adore Starbucks’ pumpkin spice syrup in my coffee.  It just tastes like fall.    When I do give in, to my Starbuks cravings, I always order a grande non-fat pumpkin spice misto (pronounced mee-sto).  Misto is Starbucks’ word for a cafe au lait (coffee and steamed milk).  Although, I cannot say whether or not this word is unique to Starbucks.  Anyway. Why a misto instead of a latte you ask?

Flash back eight long years to the bar exam.  Studying was my full time job and anxiety ruled my world for those couple months.  Between the swirling of my mind and anxiety, I did not sleep very well.  This translated to being quite tired.  There was no room for tired.  One day (certainly in an effort to procrastinate my studies), I decided to do some research on caffeine.  I really wanted to get the most bang for my buck.  Aside from red bull, I wanted to know what coffee drinks contained the highest levels of caffeine.  I was surprised by what I learned. After all, I was always under the assumption that espresso (key ingredient in a latte) would be the most caffienated version of coffee.  Espresso is similar express and express is similar to fast and fast makes me think lots of caffiene.  Do you follow?  Well, I wrong.  I won’t get into the science of it all because well, who cares – but just know that cup of plain old coffee has more caffiene than espresso.  Got it?  So, that day I switched from lattes to the world of mistos.

The next step was – how do I recreate the misto magic at home?  First: I bought an Aerolatte (to buy your own, click here).

The Aerolatte is a battery operated wand that froths milk.  It’ll cost you a little less than $20 and it lasts for at least 3 years.  Here is what I do: I pour 4 ounces of milk in a mug, microwave for 30 seconds, froth with the Aerolatte (rinsing the end of the Aerolatte with water after every use), pour my syrup of choice on the frothed milk, and top with coffee.  Bam.  You are your own coffee shop.  Coffee syrup? I’ve been using Torani sugar free coffee syrups.  You can actually buy syrups from Starbucks but not the pumpkin spice one.  They aren’t that dumb.  You’re on your own for that one.  Enter this post.

There are many many recipes for this online – google it for yourself.  They are all about the same.  The only wrinkle I came across is straining the syrup.  I suppose the end result is all about personal preference but I’m not a fan of ground cloves in my coffee.  It’s just too much.  So here is what I came up with.