pumpkin spice lattes

In case you haven't noticed, Pumpkin Spice Lattes are back at Starbucks! It's kind of hard to miss - seems like everyone and anyone are posting status updates on facebook about them. There's even a fan page for them! :)

Reading all those status updates made me want one, of course. Crave one. But being pregnant and living a 25 mile round-trip away from the nearest Starbucks put a damper on my pumpkin latte parade. But at around $4.50 per cup, I guess it helps out the checkbook.

Luckily there are tons of recipes online for a pumpkin spice latte. We tried one yesterday and it tasted like pureed pumpkin pie with way too much nutmeg. Liquid nutmeg with some pumpkin. It was awful. Latte fail.

So we tried a new one this morning! It was very yummy (results are in the pic above). I doubled the recipe, added a bit more sugar but didn't double the spices (except for the cinnamon) as I was a little spice-phobic after yesterday's attempt. Here is our modified version:

- 4 cups milk

- 1.5 cups of strong brewed coffee (we used decaf)

- 4 T canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)

- 3 T white sugar

- 3 T brown sugar

- 4 T vanilla (seriously)

- 1/2 tsp cinnamon

- 1/8 tsp ground cloves

- 1/8 tsp nutmeg

- teeny tiny pinch of ginger

Whisk together the coffee and milk, then whisk in the pumpkin, spices, sugar and vanilla.

We did put it in the crockpot, but since we wanted to try it right away we just warmed up a few mugs in the microwave and then let the crockpot warm up the rest for a couple hours. We topped ours off with chocolate syrup, lots of whipped cream and sprinkles. And Halloween marshmallows for the kiddos. And maybe me.

Instead of a crockpot, you could always use one of these bad boys too. I bought one for hubby a couple years ago as a funny Christmas gift (but it does get used almost daily during the winter).

You'll probably want to add spices to taste - warm up a bit and see if it's to your liking before adding more. I'm more of a hot cocoa person vs. a coffee person - so you may want to add more coffee or use espresso for a stronger coffee taste.

You could probably mix up a batch to keep in the fridge and warm up a mug at a time for a day or two for your own pumpkin spice latte fix.