My favorite holiday drink at Starbucks is easily the Caramel Brulee Latte, which I ordered hot until a sweet barista recently suggested I try it ice. Holy moly, it changed my life. Drinking it cold really makes the flavor profile a lot more noticeable.
I loved it so much, when my local Starbucks ran out of caramel brulee latte sauce (probably from all my visits), I tested recipes until I figured out a close match and recently shared how to make it in an earlier post. So, today, I’m going to show you how I use my caramel brulee sauce to make an iced caramel brulee latte that is so good – you won’t believe it’s not Starbucks.
Iced Caramel Brulee Latte Ingredients:
You don’t need very many ingredients to make this drink. The only caveat here is that the caramel brulee syrup or sauce does have a different flavor than just straight caramel sauce, so you can’t really sub it out and get the same flavor profile. If you’ve ever had creme brulee, you know that caramelization gives the sugar a richer, deeper, warmer flavor and that is exactly what you taste in the caramel brulee flavoring.
- Caramel Brulee Sauce: I tried different recipes to get a caramel brulee sauce that tasted like a warmer caramel and finally nailed it with the use of brown sugar caramelized. It’s the perfect base for the sauce. It’s not as easy to make as a simple syrup and takes a bit longer (maybe 20-25 minutes), but it makes a large amount and will keep in the fridge for a few weeks. Find my recipe here.
- Espresso Shots: I used a double espresso Nespresso pod. You can use any espresso or even make shots with instant espresso. The hot coffee melts the caramel and white chocolate sauces. If you make this with cold coffee, it won’t dissolve the sauces and will actually harden them a bit, so it’ll have a very different taste and texture. You could brew strong, hot coffee and use that instead of espresso shots, too. If you do that, brew 8oz of hot, strong coffee. I use my Nespresso Vertuoline machine to make espresso and it makes it so easy.
- Milk of Choice: I used unsweetened oatmilk. Use whatever works for you here. If you don’t make a request at Starbucks, they traditionally use 2% milk. If you like the way their coffees taste, you can use that as your milk.
- Whipped Cream: I used a sweet whipped cream in place of sweet cream to make it faster. You can swap this out for whatever you like. I’ve tried unsweetened whip, coconutmilk whip, almondmilk whip, and homemade whip.
- Ice: Yaaaaasss. Ice, ice, baby. I do not brew the coffee over ice, because it melts it and waters it down too much. I brew my espresso into an espresso cup, so that it cools a bit before adding it to the sauces to melt them. By the time you are adding the ice, it’s cooled enough where it won’t melt the ice as quickly.
- Toppings: I used regular Torani caramel syrup to drizzle here, but we all know that Starbucks uses little toffee bits. You can actually buy toffee bits at the store or cut up little bits of toffee candy to make your own. Personally, they get stuck in my teeth and they are not my favorite part of the drink, so I used caramel drizzle.
That’s it! It’s basically an iced caramel latte, but we are swapping out the syrups.
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How To Make an Iced Caramel Brulee Latte:
The moment of truth. Let’s put this delicious drink together. I showed a video on my Instagram walking you through it, so feel free to watch that here:
View this post on Instagram
Step-By-Step Directions:
- Start by brewing 2 espresso shots
- Put 2-3tbsp of the caramel brulee sauce in a glass. I did 2.
- Add the espresso shots and use the heat to dissolve it into the sauce.
- Add ice. About one cup.
- Add milk of choice. I used about one cup of milk. Use less if you want it stronger. You can always add half a cup, stir and taste it to see what you think. Leave room for whip.
- You can stir it with the milk if you like it mixed. I do this so it’s more evenly distributed.
- Add whip or toppings that you like.
- That’s seriously it, folks.
Options:
If you want to cold froth your milk, you can add another tablespoon of the sauce to the milk, which I did for the hot version of this drink.
More Copycat Recipes:
- Starbucks Iced Peppermint Mocha
- Starbucks Iced Brown Sugar Shaken Espresso
- Starbucks Iced Caramel White Mocha
- Starbucks Iced Caramel Macchiato Copycat
Hope you found your new favorite drink today!
Get roasted,
A
