Homemade Mocha Cookie Crumble Frappuccino

The Mocha Cookie Crumble Frappuccino is a summertime offering from Starbucks that is a favorite with chocolate-loving customers. It’s mocha with a hint of cookies n’ cream – and that is a great combination in just about any form that it comes in. A regular frappuccino might be good when you want to indulge on the go, but it is pretty easy to whip up an at-home version that can hold its own when it comes to flavor.

My Homemade Mocha Cookie Crumble Frappuccino is made with equal parts strong coffee and milk, cocoa powder, sugar and crushed chocolate wafer cookies. Oreos work just as well as plain chocolate wafer cookies, so use those if you have some on hand instead of hunting through the market to find the plain wafers. I prefer to use cocoa powder and sugar, but if you have some chocolate sauce that will also work well. All of the ingredients are blended until smooth then, like the drink that inspired it, it is topped with whipped cream and cookie crumbles.

The Starbucks version of this frappuccino is topped of with chocolate whipped cream. You can easily make a quick chocolate whipped cream by folding some chocolate sauce into some whipped cream. I happen to like vanilla whipped cream as a contrast to the mocha frappuccino and the chocolaty crumbles on top, so that is what I went with here.
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Banana Mocha Ice Blended

A few years ago, the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf offered a summer drink called the Banana Caramel Ice Blended. It was essentially a caramel ice blended coffee drink with banana added to it. A few years before that, Starbucks had a Banana Mocha Frappuccino on their menu that was very similar. These drinks only lasted the season, but they had quite a few fans – including some friends of mine who are reminded of them every time they’re in the mood for a frappuccino. Fortunately, with a blender, some bananas and some coffee, I was able to put together an acceptable substitute to hold them over until they reappear on menu boards.

This Banana Mocha Ice Blended starts out like a regular blended mocha drink with a whole banana added to it. The banana alone might not seem like it goes well with coffee, but both coffee and bananas go very well with chocolate, and the three work together beautifully when combined. The drink is creamy, with a nice coffee kick and some extra sweetness from the banana. It’s very refreshing and the banana adds just enough of a nutritional punch that you could justify drinking one of these for breakast as well as an afternoon pick-me-up.

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Cadbury Chocolate Creme Egg Mocha

A few years ago, I made my first Cadbury Creme Egg Coffee by dissolving a whole Cadbury Creme Egg into a mug of hot coffee to both create a sweet, mocha-like drink and make good use of leftover Easter candy. The drink has become an Easter tradition for me. This year I decided to mix things up with Chocolate Cadbury Creme Eggs, which I hadn’t had before. These eggs are filled with a rich chocolate mousse-like filling that is sweet, but also has a strong chocolate flavor.

When I dropped the egg into my coffee, it melted smoothly and turned out an even more delicious drink than the classic Creme Egg does. It is rich, creamy and has a great mocha flavor – even though I didn’t add any milk. I will be stocking up on Chocolate Creme Eggs just to keep them on hand to make these after Easter – but you might want to pick some up for an Easter brunch or party because these eggs make serving coffee quite a bit more fun (and, of course, tasty).

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Homemade Cool Lime Refresher

Starbucks launched their Refreshers drinks two summers ago. Laced with green coffee extract, the drinks are supposed to give you a mild energy boost as well as provide a cool, lightly sweetened drink – which makes them refreshing in two ways. I have been a big fan of them since they first came out because I definitely find them to be refreshing on a hot day because they aren’t too sweet but have a nice flavor.

This Homemade Cool Lime Refresher is an easy to make version of Starbucks’ Cool Lime Refresher that you can easily make at home. It is a lot like limemade, but with a lot less lime juice and sugar so it has a milder (and, yes, more refreshing) flavor. You need to use fresh lime juice to get the best results, but one lime will allow you to make one or two large drinks, so a little goes a long way in this recipe. It can also be doubled or tripled if you want to serve a crowd.

My homemade drink doesn’t contain any green coffee bean extract, but if you want to add some to yours, you can track it down at many health food stores in the nutritional supplement aisle. Personally, I just have a little regular coffee to pick me up and then the refresher to cool me down.
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Salt and Pepper Mocha

If you want to make your sweetheart something that is a little sweet and a little spicy for Valentine’s Day this year, try making a Salt and Pepper Mocha. This drink has a little kick to it – courtesy of Trader Joe’s Organic Stone Ground Salt and Pepper Dark Chocolate. This is a coarsely ground, Mexican-style chocolate that TJ’s has been selling recently and it is perfect for making a grown up mocha or hot chocolate.

The chocolate comes in discs and it is easy to break up into pieces by hand. The chocolate has a very crumbly texture and, while you definitely get a sweet and fruity dark chocolate with your first taste, the salt and pepper flavors are very distinct. This gives the chocolate a savory, spicy quality that is a nice change of pace from other chocolates – and from other mocha drinks. I melted half a disc of the chocolate into a mug of hot coffee, then topped it off with hot, steamed milk to make my mocha. The coffee goes extremely well with the salt and pepper flavors in the chocolate, so the drink only needed a touch of milk to round it out. If you’re not a big dark chocolate fan, or simply prefer your mochas a little bit sweeter, feel free to stir in a bit more sugar than I used.

If you want to try this but don’t have access to the Salt and Pepper Chocolate, don’t worry. Simply substitute the same amount of dark chocolate and add a generous pinch of salt, along with a slightly smaller pinch of pepper, until the chocolate has a little kick to it.

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