Starbucks Pumpkin Cream Cold Brew
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We’re well into fall and honestly the temperature has been beautiful for late September and early October! I’m very happy summer is not quite over yet! I personally really love cold coffee, and what I love about the iced fall-themed drinks is that you can get the fall flavours but you can still cool down when it’s hot outside (or inside, if sipping at home!). You get the best of both fall and summer vibes!
If you’ve followed me for awhile now, you know that Starbucks is a major source of inspiration for me! I give more details in my free motivational guide to explore your potential in the kitchen, Make Cooking Fun! free guide! To get it, make sure you sign up for the newsletter! You’ll also get my one-month Live to Cook challenge!
To see how this fall favourite drink comes together, check out the video at the bottom of this post! It would mean a lot if you would please subscribe to my YouTube channel if you haven’t already, and be sure to press the bell button to be notified when all of my video recipes go live! Let’s get brewing!
What is in Starbucks pumpkin Cream Cold brew?
To see how we’re going prepare our own take on the Pumpkin Cream Cold Brew at home, I like to know how Starbucks describes the drink. Here is the official definition:
Starbucks® Cold Brew sweetened with vanilla syrup and topped with pumpkin cream cold foam and a dusting of pumpkin-spice topping.
source: Starbucks.com
Now let’s go over the actual ingredient list.
ICE, BREWED COFFEE, PUMPKIN CREAM [VANILLA SWEET CREAM (CREAM (CREAM, MONO AND DIGLYCERIDES, CARAGEENAN), MILK, VANILLA SYRUP (SUGAR, WATER, NATURAL FLAVORS, POTASSIUM SORBATE, CITRIC ACID)), PUMPKIN SPICE SAUCE (SUGAR, CONDENSED SKIM MILK, PUMPKIN PUREE, CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF FRUIT AND VEGETABLE JUICE FOR COLOR, NATURAL FLAVORS, ANNATTO, SALT, POTASSIUM SORBATE)], VANILLA SYRUP [SUGAR, WATER, NATURAL FLAVORS, POTASSIUM SORBATE, CITRIC ACID], PUMPKIN SPICE TOPPING [CINNAMON, GINGER, NUTMEG, AND CLOVES]
source: Starbucks.com
This list seems long, but fear not, ours won’t be as long! Plus, it’ll be more natural!
Why You’ll Love a pumpkin cream cold brew!
I totally recommend you make this Starbucks Chocolate Cream Cold Brew today! It’ll be awesome to whip up for the summer whenever you have both a cold brew craving and a chocolate one - satisfy them together with this drink!
Easy: You just need to make the foam and top it over your cold brew!
Quick: If you have your cold brew and pumpkin sauce ready, then this can honestly take you 5 minutes or less to get it ready!
Customizable: There’s full control over how much sweetness, pumpkin flavour, strength of the coffee, and how much foam you want here! You can really tweak the recipe to make it your own, and you’ve got way more options than Starbucks’ customizations!
Few ingredients: We’re going all-natural with this recipe by making everything from scratch, as I pride myself in doing! As you saw above, there are quite a lot of processed ingredients going on there!
Budget-friendly: If you make your own cold brew and pumpkin sauce, then you can make big batches and the cost per serving will be extremely small! Making the chocolate cold foam is also pretty cheap too!
Pumpkin goodness: Fall time calls for pumpkin, and this drink is full of it! The cold brew itself is sweetened with homemade pumpkin sauce and the cold foam is also sweetened with pumpkin sauce! Double the greatness!
Tools needed to make Starbucks Pumpkin Cream Cold Brew
You’ll need a few pieces of equipment to make a Starbucks Pumpkin Cream Cold Brew at home! However, there are definitely alternatives, so read on to find out more!
Ingredients for Pumpkin Cream Cold Brew
For all ingredient quantities and to save the recipe for later, scroll to the bottom of this post for the FULL PRINTABLE RECIPE CARD and save the recipe for later! You can also scale the recipe based on how many cold brews you want to serve, so you can do a single portion or for you and your friends and family!
For the Pumpkin Cream Cold Foam
Heavy cream: The main ingredient in cold foam! Heavy cream is also known as whipping cream, and it’s 30% milk fat or higher (here in Canada it’s 35% milk fat). The “whipping” part of the name means that whipping cream becomes aerated and rises.
Milk: You can use any type of milk that you have on hand, but my recommendation would be whole milk (3.25% milk fat) to really get the best texture and taste! You need to add the milk to your foam or else you’ll just end up with whipped cream. Milk flattens out the mixture and makes it a “foam” rather than a “cream,” but cream and milk together becomes “cream cold foam!”
Pumpkin spice: Store-bought or homemade.
Pumpkin sauce: Store-bought or homemade.
For the Cold Brew
Whole coffee beans: Don’t grind these too finely or else you will get a very bitter cold brew! I used the “pulse” setting on my blender.
Water: Add this to the freshly ground coffee and allow to brew.
For the Pumpkin Cream Cold Brew
Ice cubes
Cold brew coffee
Cold foam
Pumpkin sauce
How to make a Better than Starbucks pumpkin Cream Cold Brew
For the cold brew
Take the whole coffee beans and add them to a food processor. Grind them to a medium coarse consistency.
Add the ground coffee to a large bowl or jar and add water. Mix well, and refrigerate for at least 10 hours or for up to 24 hours.
Strain the coffee over a large bowl or jar using a fine mesh coffee filter or cheesecloth or using a French press.
For the Pumpkin sauce
In a saucepan, add the water and sugar and turn on the heat. Whisk well and warm the mixture until the sugar has completely dissolved.
Once dissolved, add the pumpkin puree, condensed milk, pumpkin spice and vanilla extract. Heat for 1-2 minutes and then turn off the heat. Pour out the pumpkin syrup into a mason jar for storage in the refrigerator.
For the Pumpkin Cream Foam
In a bowl, measuring cup, or the bowl of a stand mixer, add the cream, milk, and pumpkin sauce.
Using a frother, blender, hand mixer, stand mixer, or with your hands, whisk this mixture until it has reached the consistency of soft whipped cream. Add pumpkin spice and continue to mix.
For the pumpkin Cream Cold Brew
Add pumpkin sauce to the bottom of the cup. Pour a portion of cold brew, leaving a 1 1/2 inch gap at the top of the glass.
Add the ice cubes and mix well.
Top with the pumpkin cream cold foam and garnish with more pumpkin spice.
Enjoy!
Questions You May have!
What’s the difference between cold foam and whipped cream?
While they seem quite similar, there actually is a difference between the two!
Whipped cream is made with whipping cream and sweetener, as the name suggests. Now, cold foam is airier and thinner than whipped cream because of the milk we add to it. We also add some flavour to the cold foam, in this case, pumpkin sauce and pumpkin spice.
Do I have to use heavy cream to make the cold foam?
Yes you do. Heavy cream is also called whipping cream, and it’s for a reason! You need this type of cream to get the airiness when you will froth all the ingredients to make the cold foam. Heavy cream is the thickest cream you can get, and if you use less fat creams, then your final product won’t be foamy and it will sink to the bottom of your drink.
Can A Pumpkin Cream Cold Brew be Dairy-Free?
We have dairy in both our homemade pumpkin spice sauce and the pumpkin cream cold foam. You could make your pumpkin sauce dairy-free by using coconut milk.
When you order at Starbucks, baristas state that there is no standard dairy-free alternative to cold foam. Some baristas may make it for you if you request it, but they warn you that the texture will be quite awful! In fact, some management even advises stores to refuse this service due to the potential of how “off” it can turn out. The foam and stability comes from the dairy in whipping cream and milk, and non-dairy alternatives just don’t have the same chemical makeup!
If you’ve tried to make your own dairy-free cold foam and it worked, be sure to share your experience in the comments!
How Can I blend the coffee beans without a coffee grinder?
If you don’t have a coffee grinder - which I actually don’t have myself! - then you can use your blender! Make sure that your blender is strong enough to blend the coffee beans.
I’ve heard that apparently a Vitamix blender (what I have) won’t give you the best cold brew. However, I used the “pulse” setting to grind my beans. Avoid actually blending the beans finely or else you’ll get a very bitter and not very tasty cold brew!
What if I don’t have a hand Frother to make the pumpkin Cream cold foam?
That’s fine! While a handheld milk frother is cheap and easy to use, mine ran out of batteries and I didn’t feel like replacing them right before recording the video! Instead, I used my KitchenAid stand mixer with the whisk attachment and it did the job super easy and hands-off!
For a very small batch of cold foam, you could just use some elbow grease and just whisk it up by hand, but it’ll take a bit of time and it’ll be a workout for your arms! This would most certainly be the cheapest option!
If you’ve observed cold foam being made at Starbucks, they actually make a big batch in the blender, as mentioned here! If you have a little blender, then try that. However, I’ve found that whisking gives an airier cold foam that I personally preferred.
My next recommendation that is also budget-friendly would be to use your French press. All you would need to do is pump the plunger up and down a few times.
A slightly more expensive option would be an electric frother, which would go up to $100. However, this will be very easy to use and will yield great results!
If you have the luxury of an espresso machine with a steam wand, then go for that! You’ll get the best results with it.
Is this pumpkin Cream Cold Brew Coffee Sweet?
For my recipe, I don’t think it’s too sweet. I’m only using a small amount of pumpkin sauce in the drink, and the sauce itself is not very sweet. I’ve also got minimal pumpkin sauce in the pumpkin cream cold foam. Of course, you can make the drink, the foam, and/or both as little or as sweet as you want!
How Can I adjust the sweetness of the pumpkin cream cold brew?
At Starbucks, the default recipe has 2 pumps of vanilla syrup in the drink and 2 pumps of pumpkin sauce in the pumpkin cream cold foam. While I’m not using a “pump,” rather, tablespoons, you can always add as much or as little of the pumpkin sauce in your drink and/or cold foam. Furthermore, if you want any component sweeter, you can use different types of sweetener.
Can I use Iced Coffee instead?
Technically you “can,” but then your drink won’t be a cold brew anymore! Instead, you’ll literally have an iced pumpkin spice latte with pumpkin cream cold foam! While iced coffee is super quick to make and takes a fraction of the time, the flavours aren’t as bold as intense. This is why cold brew is a premium coffee order! The time required for cold brew allows the flavours to really seep into the water to make the flavours strong and bold! While you can of course use iced coffee, it’s just not this exact recipe!
Can I use a store-bought cold brew?
Sure! While it’s probably going to be quite costly to purchase a prepared cold brew, if you really don’t want to do the work for it then go ahead and then follow the instructions for the cold foam and assembly! I recommend the Starbucks cold brew!
Can I use a store-bought pumpkin sauce?
Again, go for it if you don’t want to do the work in making the sauce then buy it! However, while I appreciate Starbucks and all of its great drinks, sometimes I don’t want the “artificial-ness” of the sauces. Additionally, my sauce has real pumpkin, and it’s a wonderful way to enjoy the fall season! It’s only about a 5-minute process to make the pumpkin sauce, so I definitely recommend you give it a shot! You can use the leftovers in other treats such as Pumpkin Pie or Pumpkin Bread Pudding, or to even add it to your Pumpkin Oatmeal!
Can I make pumpkin Cream Cold Brew ahead of time?
The answer to this question would be: partially.
By definition, you need to make cold brew in advance anyway, as a minimum of 10 hours are required for cold brew to brew. If you want to enjoy your Pumpkin Cream Cold Brew for mornings throughout the week, then prepare a large batch of cold brew so it’s ready and waiting for you in the fridge for you to assemble the drink! Furthermore, you can also make your pumpkin sauce in advance so it’s ready to go when you’re making the Pumpkin Cream Cold Brew!
With both of these components ready, all you need to do is make your pumpkin cream cold foam on the spot and top your cold brew with it! In that case, it should only take you two minutes to make the drink, so you can make it in a pinch even when you have your busiest mornings!
Other Cold Coffee Recipes
Watch How to Make homemade starbucks pumpkin Cream Cold Brew here:
Let me know what you think of this recipe in the comments! If you’ve tried this recipe, be sure to post it on social media and tag it with #cookingwithanadi and mention me @cookingwithanadi. Thank you!