July 30, 2012

Starbucks Iced Cofee Copycat Recipe

After spending wasting another $3 on an iced coffee at Starbucks that tasted like complete crap, I got brave enough to try to make it at home again. You see, I've been trying to recreate this magical beverage at home for about a year now. I've tried Pioneer Woman's Perfect Iced Coffee recipe, which I was not a fan of (the mess, the time  were all a pain in the ass). I also tried leaving it in a french press overnight for easier cleanup and it still tasted like crap.


I figured if I could maybe get the sweetener down it could mask the grossness of the crappily brewed coffee itself. So I boiled sugar and water. This did not work either.


My husband came home with Starbucks' Indivisible Blend courtesy of a neighbor and low and behold, right on the side of the packaging was instructions on how to brew your iced coffee.


It should be stated here, that I did work at Starbucks for 3 years and made iced coffee daily. DAILY.  I'm sure you're wondering how I don't know how to make it. Well, everything is pre-measured for you, so you dump a bag of pre-measured coffee into an urn that has your liquid pre-determined. There aren't any measurements, which is where I was going wrong.


So, I'm here to tell you it's all about the measurements.


You need to brew a double batch of coffee, which is:



4 tbsp coffee grounds per 6 oz. water


Brew it in your coffee machine. No cheese cloth, no mess, no fuss, no 8 freaking hour wait.


After it brews, pour it over ice then throw it in the fridge.


And bam, you've got yourself iced coffee.


You might need to add more ice once the ice melts, but don't worry it's super strength, so it's good for it to be watered down from the ice.


Now, as for the simple syrup or "classic" as the hipsters of Starbucks would say, it's sugar water. I went wrong before by not adding nearly enough sugar, until I came across this post where they say to use the ration 1:2.


1 being the water, 2 being the sugar.


So, you boil 1 cup water then add 2 cups sugar  to it and stir/cook until dissolved. Bing bang boom.


Add as much or as little as you'd like to your delicious coffee beverage and top off with half and half (or whole milk if you share that with your toddler like we do).


And that, my friends is how you recreate yourself a $3 drink for free, within the comfort of your own home without the gamble of  those darn hipster Starbucks employees not making it to par.



Linking up this little diddy to these linky parties to hopefully inspire more people to break free from the bonds of Starbucks.

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