the making of a Caramel Macchiato!

Are you a Starbuck's fan? Well, I really am not what I would call a "fan" but I do enjoy some of their drink offerings, especially the caramel macchiato. I mean this is a great drink IMO and if I find myself at a SBs this is my go-to treat drink. Otherwise I usually just go with a Now, please know that I do not go to SBs just to get this drink, I'm tooooo cheap for that! I also cannot afford the calories, so I have learned to order it "skinny"  which knocks off a few of the calories and doesn't mess with the taste! So the cheapness in me led me to assist in the exploration of making this drink at home when Mrs 3DD said she wondered if we could recreate it! A little google search was all it took and we were off...armed with knowledge, detailed insight and a recipe we embarked on the recreation of the CM at home! In a word.... S U C C E S S. This was the site we used! We did start out following the site and then tweaked it to our own taste...little heavier on the vanilla in the syrup, little more caramel on top! It's definitely a keeper if you are a fan of this SBs drink!

 

 Whipping the milk was easy, and fun, not to mention messy if you did not keep that whippet thing all the way submerged...just sayin' And just for the record, I am going to try this again with almond milk, which I have found I really enjoy. Oh and we simply heated the milk in the microwave, easy!

Prior to this step there was the making of the vanilla syrup. You can actually buy this stuff, SBs has their brand and there are many others out there as well, but we decided to make it. VERY EASY, little water, little sugar, real vanilla, and you have your own vanilla syrup with no preservatives or other things in it you cannot pronounce!!! The recipe to make the vanilla syrup is in the link above.

 A lovely picture of the steamed milk just after it was "marked" with the espresso! We used a single serve coffee maker and used an espresso disc, it was perfect IMO. You can choose to make up your own espresso however you like. We were quite pleased with the taste, strength of the one we used.

Adding the caramel!

 

Ready to be stirred and enjoyed! Which we did! YUMMERS...I'm ready to make one now!