Starbucks Mocha Frappuccino

This summer, I became completely hooked on bottled Starbucks Frappuccinos. I worked at a daycare and often had to make trips to Wal-Mart before school, either for school supplies or because half-way to work I realized that I had forgotten to pack a lunch. I don't even want to know how much money I spent on those little bottles of delicious coffee. Last weekend, Garrett suggested that we find a recipe for how to make our own. Smart man, that one. :)

We found several recipes on the interwebs and I played with them a little. I knew I wouldn't be satisfied with homemade unless it tasted REALLY close to the original. 

Here is the closest tasting combo that I came up with. It is pretty dang good. And, it's approx 50 calories less than the store bought version, which is always a win in my book. 

Unfortunately, I did not take any pictures of the creation of the drink, but it is pretty self explanatory. One thing that I think really helped make the coffee taste pretty close to the original is the kind of coffee used, so I quickly snapped a picture of the coffee bag before writing this blog. Make sure to buy Starbucks Dark Espresso Roast. It looks like this and can be found at your local WalMart ... you will need 1/4 of a cup for this recipe.

Now, for the rest of the recipe. 

You will also need:

1/4 a cup of sugar 

2 Tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa 

6 cups of whole milk 

On some websites, I saw that you could use low-fat milk with 1 Tablespoon of pectin added, but I don't know what that is, so I went for the easy route. Wal-Mart was really crowded while I was shopping for these ingredients, so I wasn't big on spending any more time in the store than absolutely necessary.

First, make your coffee. Use 1/4 of a cup of coffee and 2 cups of cold water to your coffee maker, push start, and enjoy the fabulous smell that is engulfing your kitchen. 

Next, using a whisk, mix the sugar and cocoa into the coffee mixture until completely dissolved.

Once dissolved, add the 6 cups of milk. 

Viola. That was easy, wasn't it?!

If you have a bunch of old frappuccino bottles waiting to be recycled, this mixture will fill up 5 of them. I only had one, so I keep my coffee in a pitcher, and fill up one bottle every morning. 

Here is the best part. Normally a 9.5oz bottle goes from anywhere to $1.70 (7-11) to over $2.00 (CVS). One 9.5 oz bottle of this homemade version should cost you anywhere between 40-60 CENTS, depending on where you shop and what brands you buy!