Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino
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This post is sponsored by Javy Coffee. However, all opinions expressed are my own.
Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino
If you’re craving a cold refreshing drink with the goodness of a pumpkin pie, you gotta try this Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino recipe!
Where did the time go? I can’t believe we’re only a few days away from Halloween! If you follow me on YouTube, you know I’ve been celebrating October with a pumpkin theme this month! I’ve explored pumpkin in so many ways! From my Aloo Kohra - Indian potatoes & pumpkin curry - to my Creamy Pumpkin Pasta with Mushrooms, and of course a Pumpkin Bread Pudding to sweeten things up, pumpkins have been on my mind this month and I’ve enjoyed every second of it! I think I’ve had more pumpkin in one month than I ever have in my entire life!
October is a little bit of a strange month here in Canada. Sometimes it’s freezing cold with lots of wind (like today!), sometimes there’s early snow, or sometimes it’s as hot as summer! You can’t really predict the weather, and it changes on a daily basis.
You certainly want to reach for a hot beverage when it’s super cold, but when it’s on the warm side, then you want to enjoy the chilled beverages as much as you can before the warm weather goes away forever! I can relate!
That’s where the Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino comes in. I’ve loved frappuccinos pretty much ever since I had arrived to Canada. They’re such a tasty treat! My favourite is of course the Mocha Cookie Crumble, but I’ve really opened up a place in my heart (and tummy!) for pumpkin beverages.
While I love to enjoy a beverage from a coffee shop, doing it regularly can get expensive, especially at Starbucks! It’s notorious for being pricey! However, getting a drink once in awhile sure is a wonderful source of inspiration. I go into more detail about the benefits of going out to eat (or drink!) to inspire you in the kitchen in my Make Cooking Fun! guide. This has my 5 top tips to explore your potential in the kitchen (having a theme is another tip, and in this case it’s pumkpin!). If you’ve been wanting to recreate your own pumpkin spice frappuccino for awhile, then cross it off your bucket list and make it as part of your Live to Cook one-month challenge! Be sure to tag your frapps on Instagram to share your refreshing pumpkin creation with me!
Don’t forget to watch the video at the bottom of this post to follow along with me preparing our Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino! If you haven’t already, I’d appreciate it if you subscribe to my YouTube channel and hit the bell button to get notified when new videos are released! I love to make video recipes along with the written ones so you’ve got a visual representation of the method! Let’s get blending!
What is A Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino?
We’ll first see how Starbucks defines the frappuccino:
Pumpkin plus traditional fall spice flavors, blended with coffee, milk and ice and topped with whipped cream and pumpkin-pie spice. Think of it as the ultimate fall care package.
source: Starbucks.com
Sounds about right! If you’ve never had a pumpkin spice frappuccino, I do recommend you give it a try if you’re a pumpkin spice lover! A few weeks ago it was very cold here, but this past week it’s been almost as warm as summer! It’s on these occasions where a cold drink really comes in handy, and I personally try to enjoy the cold drinks on the warmer days while I still can before we being to freeze!
What Are the Ingredients in a Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino?
Again, let’s review the ingredients in the Starbucks drink:
ICE, MILK, COFFEE FRAPPUCCINO SYRUP [SUGAR, WATER, NATURAL FLAVOR, SALT, XANTHAN GUM, POTASSIUM SORBATE, CITRIC ACID], COFFEE, WHIPPED CREAM [CREAM (CREAM, MONO AND DIGLYCERIDES, CARAGEENAN), 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], PUMPKIN SPICE TOPPING [CINNAMON, GINGER, NUTMEG, AND CLOVES]
source: Starbucks.com
That does contain a lot of ingredients! Ours will certainly be less processed than the Starbucks version as you’ll see in the ingredient list further in this post. To break things down, here are the elements that go into the frappuccino:
Ice
Milk
Coffee syrup
Coffee
Whipped cream
Vanilla syrup
Pumpkin spice sauce
Pumpkin Spice topping
My recipe will contain most of these elements, but we will emphasize a little more pumpkin and less sugar. I’ll omit vanilla syrup in my recipe and instead of coffee syrup, we’ve got a strong coffee flavour from Javy coffee concentrate in the pistachio flavour.
Is the Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino Seasonal?
Unfortunately for pumpkin spice fanatics the Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino is a seasonal drink. You can order it when the fall menu starts - around the end of August or early September, until the winter menu rolls out, which is around late November. There is no close substitute to the Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino in the year-round menu as Starbucks removes the option to top with pumpkin spice and to add the pumpkin spice sauce in your drinks. If you want to order a custom drink, perhaps try the Caramel Frappuccino and add in cinnamon dolce syrup, topped with cinnamon sprinkles. Of course cinnamon isn’t pumpkin spice, but you’ll get a similar essence.
The beauty about being able to recreate your fast food or restaurant favourites at home is that you can enjoy your favourite drinks whenever you want! When the drink gets off the menu, then you can prepare as many of these homemade Frappuccinos as much as you want!
Does the Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino have coffee?
Yes, the standard Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino recipe has coffee. Ordering from the Starbucks app or website, you’ll see it preset to “3 Frappuccino® Roast pump(s)”. You can also add espresso shots if desired. By default, one shot of espresso is added. You can get a coffee-free frappuccino, which is the Pumpkin Spice Creme Frappuccino. Instead of coffee, the frappuccino is cream-based. Feel free to do that with this recipe if you’d like! If you like the coffee flavour but don’t want the caffeine, then Javy coffee has a decaf flavour!
How Much Sugar is in the Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino?
I will never be someone to stay away from food because of the nutrition label. However, to compare my recipe versus Starbucks’, the Starbucks drink has 65 grams of sugar! Yikes!!
I’ll be honest with you that when I drank the Starbucks version at the same time as mine (as you can see in the video at the bottom of this post!), I could really taste the syrup in there. It was very prominent and sweet, whereas mine was a little more subtle. Of course, when you make your own frappuccino, you can control the amount of sweetness you want. I won’t add any extra sugar in the blender - it just comes from the pumpkin spice syrup and there’s some in the whipped cream. As shown above, the default Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino recipe has vanilla syrup plus the pumpkin spice syrup for sweetness.
Equipment for pumpkin spice frappuccino
Ingredients for Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino
Be sure to scroll to the bottom of this post for the FULL PRINTABLE RECIPE CARD for all ingredient quantities and to save the recipe for later. You can also scale the recipe based on how many frapps you want to make - these are awesome for guests!
For the Pumpkin Spice
For the Pumpkin Spice Sauce
Water
Pumpkin spice
For the Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino
Ice cubes: A must to make a frappuccino! It’s a blended iced beverage, so we need these to chill our milk and coffee! Plus, the ice cubes add volume and thickness to the drink.
Coffee: For this recipe, I’ll be using Javy coffee concentrate in the pistachio flavour. Why pistachio? Just to have a personal fusion of flavours going on here! No worries if you don’t have Javy, though! You can substitute with instant coffee or espresso powder for this recipe, depending on how strong of a coffee flavour you want. You could also brew coffee or espresso if you have a machine or want to do so. To mimic the pistachio flavour that will come from using Javy, add 1/4 teaspoon of pistachio extract with your coffee.
Pumpkin spice sauce: Make your own as mentioned above or you can use a store-bought syrup if you want.
Milk: The standard Starbucks recipe uses whole milk to make their frappuccinos. I’ll use 1% milk because that’s what I had. It’ll still be creamy, but you’ll get better results with whole milk to be honest!
Whipped cream: From a can or make your own!
Pumpkin spice: Store-bought or homemade as I’ll be describing.
How to make Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino
We’ll quickly go over how to make the pumpkin spice and pumpkin spice sauce. For more details, be sure to check out my Perfect DIY Pumpkin Spice and Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Sauce recipes!
FOR THE PUMPKIN Spice
To make this pumpkin pie spice recipe, all you need to do is mix all the spices together in a plate or shake the ingredients together in an airtight jar.
FOR THE PUMPKIN Spice 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 Spice Frappuccino
In a blender/food processor add the milk, ice, Javy coffee, and pumpkin sauce.
Blend well until the ice is completely crushed.
Pour into a serving glass. Top with whipped cream and pumpkin spice.
Serve immediately and enjoy!
Tips for a refreshing pumpkin spice frappuccino
The amount of ice is important to consider to get the right final consistency in the drink.
Avoiding over-blending the drink to prevent excessive foam. If you do get extra foam due to blending, you can spoon that out.
Serve it right away to get the complete experience of the drink with the frozen bits of ice.
How can I Switch up my Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino?
Syrup: Try adding one of these syrups into the blender along with our pumpkin spice syrup
Coffee: I used the pistachio-flavoured Javy coffee concentrate. However, they also have a pumpkin spice flavour, so you can have an even stronger
Pumpkin: If you really want this to be a super pumpkin-y drink, then add some pumpkin puree into the blender too! This will give a wonderful orange colour depending on what kind of pumpkin you’ve used to make your puree or if you’re using it from a can! Furthermore, you can freeze your pumpkin puree in ice cube trays and add the pumpkin ice cubes directly into the blender, replacing “regular” ice cubes!
Sauce: If you want a touch of mocha to your frappuccino, you could add some Cafe Mocha Chocolate Syrup over the whipped cream or in the blend. You could even have a little touch of caramel by using my Simple Caramel Sauce. If you want to make this an adult frappuccino, then feel free to try my Coffee Whiskey Caramel Sauce!
Sweetener: I didn’t add any sweetener to my frappuccino because I found it was sweet enough. However, as mentioned earlier, the Starbucks drink contains vanilla syrup. You can sweeten your drink with my Quick Vanilla Syrup for Coffee recipe and add it in the frappuccino blend. No worries if you don’t have this syrup and don’t fee like making it! Table sugar will work great. If you want a natural sweetener, try brown sugar, honey, cane sugar, or maple syrup.
Lighten the calories: Skim milk and a light whipped topping work to reduce the calories of the drink. You can sweeten your drink with a zero-calorie sweetener such as Stevia as well if you want.
Make a vegan frappuccino: Use coconut whipped cream and your favourite plant-based milk. However, I can’t guarantee the texture and taste will be the same.
Other Starbucks CopyCat Recipes!
Watch How to Make Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino here:
If you liked this recipe please let me know in the comments. Tag your post on social media using #cookingwithanadi and mention me @cookingwithanadi. If you’ve tried out Javy coffee concentrate for this syrup, be sure to tag #drinkjavy in your posts too! Thank you!