Pumpkin Cream Cold Brew

posted by Megan on Oct 14, 2022 0 comments »

I’m so glad I finally caved and got something pumpkin from Starbucks. I hate hot coffee, but I love the flavor of coffee and I like cold drinks. So obviously, the pumpkin cream cold brew looked pretty solid.

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And it WAS. Before I even finished the coffee, my brain was swimming with recreation methods and possibilities. I made several more trips to Starbucks and spied on the baristas while they made my cold brew. Looking back, I probably could’ve just asked them how to make it, but they looked really busy.

Cold Brew Coffee

Making the cold brew itself is a really simple process. The most difficult part is actually getting the right coffee grounds, since they must be coarsely ground. Most pre-packaged grounds at the store are too fine of a grind, and using them would leave you with a layer of gritty sludge at the bottom of the jar after brewing.

Thankfully, you can find coarse ground coffee for relatively cheap online if you don’t live near a local coffee grinder or a shop that sells it. Some grocery stores offer bulk beans that you can weigh out and grind to your liking, right there in the aisle.

two small white bowls beside each other, one has whole coffee beans, and the other has coffee grounds

If you do grind the coffee yourself in the store, or have a coffee grinder at home, choose a medium-coarse setting. You’re looking for the consistency of coarse cornmeal. On a Baratza style grinder (what I use), choose 30. Try not to go any larger than that, since too coarse of a grind won’t yield strong enough coffee.

Ratio

Use 1 cup of whole beans, grind them up, and then add to a large jar with 4 cups of filtered or distilled water. I like to use distilled, since it can capture the sweetness and extract the best flavor from the beans that tap water doesn’t.

Allow the coffee to steep in the fridge for 12-14 hours. Don’t steep for longer than 15 hours, or you’ll risk extra bitterness that would get in the way of the flavor. After steeping, strain out the coffee from the grounds. I just use my 8 cup Chemex with one of the filters, but you can also use a cheesecloth secured over a large jar.

Pumpkin cream/cold foam

There’s lots of recipes that call for heavy cream and pumpkin puree. That’s fine, but this is a similar situation to the Shamrock Shake. Starbucks does not use pumpkin puree, vanilla extract and sugar. They use a vanilla syrup for the cold brew and a pumpkin sauce for the cream.

This pumpkin spice sauce from Torani is the closest thing to perfect you’ll find, aside from purchasing actual bootleg Starbucks sauce off of eBay (it’s expensive?? Illegal maybe??). I didn’t notice one difference in flavor from my purchased drink to the one I made at home.

top shot of the ingredients needed to make pumpkin cream cold brew

Use a blend of 2% milk, heavy cream and pumpkin spice sauce. Since there’s already sugar syrup in the sauce, you don’t need any additional sugar or vanilla in the cream blend. Use a milk frother for a couple minutes to thicken it up into a luxurious, dense foam.

Servings

After brewing the coffee, you’ll end up with about 3 1/3 cups of cold coffee (24 oz, plus a little more.) For every 8 oz of cold brew coffee, stir in 2 tablespoons of vanilla syrup before pouring over 1 cup of ice. The foam recipe will make enough to top three 8 oz glasses with about an inch of foam. Use the frother in between topping each glass to keep the foam nice and thick.

Sprinkle the top of the foam with a little pumpkin pie spice blend!