Gingerbread Latte at Home

Here’s how to make your favourite coffee shop holiday drink, the Gingerbread Latte at home. It starts with a homemade syrup full of warming spices, full flavoured espresso, and your favourite milk or milk substitute.

‘Tis the season for heart and soul warming hot drinks. There’s just something special about sipping a homemade Caramel Macchiato as you watch the snow falling gently outside your window. Or coming back inside your home filled with the warming scent of Hot Apple Cider after shoveling the driveway.

Gingerbread Latte Starbucks Copycat

Well friends, it looks like the Starbucks Gingerbread Latte isn’t coming back to stores again this season. Our son is a barista at one of the busiest locations in the city and he says customers are always asking for them.

If you are one of those disappointed customers, you’re going to love this recipe. Today, you have found one of the best copycat Starbucks Gingerbread Latté recipes on the web.

This homemade gingerbread latte recipe is as close as you can get to the real deal. The spicy homemade syrup hits all the right gingerbread flavor notes. Combined with the dark espresso and steamy frothed milk, it tastes just like a gingerbread cookie in liquid form.

Of course, if gingerbread isn’t your thing, try a homemade hazelnut latte instead. The delicious nutty hazelnut flavour is reminiscent of Nutella spread!

Ingredients for a Homemade Gingerbread Latte

Besides the standard two shots espresso and steamed milk, this holiday favorite contains an enchanting molasses syrup featuring warm spices like ground ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.

• Sugar
• Brown Sugar
• Molasses
• Ground Ginger
• Ground Cinnamon
• Ground Nutmeg
• Ground Cloves
• Sea Salt
• Vanilla Extract
• Milk
• Espresso
• Whipped Cream

The spices in this recipe; cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves are considered ‘warming spices’ because they leave a warm feeling in your mouth but are not exactly ‘spicy’. They are commonly found in holiday baking, beverages, cocktails, and sweets.

Christmas is a great time to assess the spice cupboard and replace any old stale spices. Fresh spices (less than a year old) will help your baking and other holiday treats achieve peak flavour.

You may be wondering why there’s a touch of sea salt in the syrup. Salt is commonly added to sweet recipes as it helps to amplify the flavours in most recipes. This is especially true in recipes that contain a lot of sugar. As always, a touch of vanilla rounds out the flavour in this syrup recipe.

As this is an espresso based hot drink, hot shots of your favourite espresso will yield best flavour results. You can also use 1/2 cup hot strongly brewed coffee in place of the espresso.

You’ll notice there are three varieties of sugar in this syrup recipe. Granulated or white sugar, brown sugar, and molasses. They all act as sweeteners but the brown sugar adds more caramel flavour.

Note that molasses is the by-product of sugar refinement, even though it is still considered a liquid sweetener. It will also help to thicken the syrup.

Health Benefits of Molasses

Molasses contains several vitamins and minerals. It’s naturally rich in antioxidants, iron, calcium, magnesium, potassium, phosphorus, and vitamin B6. As such, it may relieve constipation, help treat anemia, and support bone and hair health. (healthline)

Finally, let’s talk milk. Many baristas will use a barista blend that is like homogenized milk at 3.25% milk fat or whole milk (2 % milk fat). If you are looking for a dairy substitute, I highly recommend barista focused milk alternatives like cashew or almond milk, oat milk, or other vegetable protein based milks.

How to Make Gingerbread Syrup

Great news! This syrup recipe yields enough to make 8-10 gingerbread lattes, depending on how much you use in each drink. Additionally, the syrup will last for up to one month in the fridge so you can make it at the beginning of December and enjoy Gingerbread lattes all month long.

Besides lattes, the gingerbread syrup is also amazing poured over ice cream, bread pudding, pancakes, and waffles.

Okay, let’s make the gingerbread syrup! To begin, place the water, sugar, brown sugar, molasses, 1 1/4 teaspoons ground ginger, 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg, pinch of cloves, and pinch of salt into a medium-sized saucepan. Stir to combine.

Heat the sugar-molasses mixture over medium low heat and bring to a simmer, stirring occasionally. Once it arrives at a low simmer, stir constantly for 5 minutes.

Remove syrup from heat and stir in the vanilla extract. There is no need to cool the syrup down to room temperature if you are using it right away. Store any unused syrup in a jar in the fridge for up to one month. Stir it well before using to redistribute and spices that have settled.

How to Make a Gingerbread Latte

The easiest way to make this espresso-based drink is with an espresso machine, especially one that has the frother built in. However, you can make the espresso shots with a stove top espresso maker and froth the milk with a milk frother.

Feel free to use strong coffee in place of espresso and heat the milk in a small saucepan over medium heat instead of steaming it. Make it extra special with a dollop of whipped cream and a sprinkle of spices before serving.

To make the gingerbread latte, pour two shots of hot espresso or strong coffee in a mug, stir in two tablespoons of gingerbread syrup (preferably hot), and top with the steamed milk. You can use the foam from the steamed milk or top with whipped cream.

I love to dust the top with a pinch of nutmeg or cinnamon (or both!) to serve.

If you make this Gingerbread Latte recipe, please be sure to leave a comment and/or give this recipe a rating! Be sure to follow me on Facebook and Pinterest for my latest recipes. Also, if you do make this recipe, please tag me on Instagram, I’d love to see what you guys are making! Thank you so much for reading my blog.