Pumpkin Coffee is Back, Baby!!
I know it’s only August and this has nothing to do with exercise (…or does it?) but please let me have my pumpkin coffee moment. During my undergrad, I worked at a certain Big Coffee Company and I’m not saying the pumpkin season made 4:30am shifts worth it necessarily but I’m also not not saying that pumpkin season wasn’t the best part of the mornings. Although I’m not really a pumpkin latte kind of gal, I always loved putting a pump here and there in my cold brew or hot coffee. Last year was the first year I wasn’t employed at some type of coffee establishment with the incredible luxury of free coffee, so naturally I had to become resourceful if I didn’t want to spend $280 on a single cup of pumpkin cold brew (an exaggeration but also, not really an exaggeration ya know?).
Anyway, I digress. I’m doing that thing that food bloggers do and telling you an irrelevant (and somehow kind of tragic, in a way) back story when you probably just want the recipe.
Pumpkin Sauce (it’s vegan btw!)
Ingredients:
1/2 cup pumpkin puree (I just use canned, you could crack open a real pumpkin if you wanted, though)
1/2 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup water
2 teaspoons of pumpkin pie spice (or ~1/4 tsp each of cinnamon, allspice, cloves, ginger)
Directions:
Combine all ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil.
Reduce the heat to medium for 6-10 minutes. You’ll want to stir the sauce so it doesn’t get burnt!
Remove from heat once the sauce is a little bit thicker, it should be able to coat the back of a spoon. Not quite ‘mashed potatoes-thick’ but also not quite ‘heated up milk-thin’ if that makes sense?
And that’s it! I like to refrigerate my pumpkin sauce in a jar of some kind, be it recycled glass or an old mason jar. When you’re ready to make delicious pumpkin coffee, open up your jar and plop it in your mug, then pour that sweet, sweet hot bean water on top and stir! I’ve found that 2-3 tablespoons of pumpkin sauce seems to be the sweet spot for ~16 ounces of coffee, but you might like more or less. If I’m making iced coffee, I’ll slightly heat the pumpkin sauce so it’s easier to mix with the cold coffee.
Let me know if you try this out, and happy nearly-fall to all my fall loving friends. As always, feel free to send me an email with any questions, comments, or concerns, and I’ll see you next Friday.
Thanks for reading,
-Jory
