White Chocolate Mocha

At coffee shops, white chocolate mochas are almost always made with some kind of white chocolate (or white chocolate-flavored) fudge sauce. They’re good, if sweet, but it’s hard to know exactly what’s going into the drink. It’s easy to make these drinks at home with regular white chocolate. Look for a brand that just has cocoa butter, sugar, milk (or milk solids, as they are sometimes listed) and vanilla in it. These tend to be higher quality chocolates with a smoother finish and better flavor.

To make the drink, all you really need to do is melt white chocolate into milk, then add in your coffee or espresso before serving. I usually top white chocolate mochas off with some whipped cream, since the milk is already hot and doesn’t actually need to be steamed once the white chocolate has been incorporated. You can always whisk up the milk/chocolate mixture with a whisk to create some froth and aerate it a bit before adding the coffee, if you wish.

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Mocha Pudding Cake

Chocolate pudding cakes are the quick-fix way to make a molten chocolate cake. They’re cakes that bake into two layers in the oven all on their own – a light cake and a rich chocolate sauce.  Coffee is a great way to boost the flavor of chocolate and make it seem more intense, so it’s usually a great addition to a chocolate dessert. In the case of this cake, there is so much coffee that the whole dessert takes on a mocha flavor.

The pudding is smooth and chocolaty, with a consistency somewhere between warm pudding and chocolate sauce. It adds a lot of moisture to the chocolate cake layer, which is fairly thin, but provides the perfect amount of cake to go with the sauce. The dessert is easy to make and is a great way to use up the coffee still in the pot after you’ve already had a cup or two.

If you don’t want so much mocha, you can always opt for a regular chocolate pudding cake, instead.

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No decaf drip after noon at Starbucks

I know a few people who prefer to drink decaf coffee in the evenings. They order decaf after dinner in restaurants and brew it at home after dinner parties. These people might be a little bit concerned to hear that Starbucks is planning to stop automatically brewing fresh decaf in the afternoons. But not to worry, decaf-drinkers. If you want decaf coffee, the baristas will brew a fresh pot for you. Your coffee will not only be decaf, it will be extra-fresh in about 4 minutes. You’ll still be able to get decaf espresso, as the shots are always pulled fresh. If the 4-minute wait for brewing is off-putting, you can always order a decaf americano.

The change – which may not be done at stores where there is an unusally high demand for decaf drip in general – is a cost- and labor-saving measure. Ordinarily, Starbucks brews fresh pots of coffee every 30 minutes. They end up throwing away lots of decaf – far more than regular drip – because it is ordered less frequently.

Homemade London Fog Tea Latte

One of the new Tazo tea lattes at Starbucks is the London Fog Latte. It’s made with Earl Grey tea – hence the “London Fog” name. Earl Grey tea is a classic tea, a longtime favorite of many tea drinkers. It’s made with black tea and is flavored with bergamot, a citrus fruit with a orangy perfumy flavor. Starbucks uses vanilla syrup in their London Fog recipe to highlight the bergamot and give the tea a full, warm flavor.

The drink is easy to make at home if you have some vanilla syrup on hand, whether it’s homemade or store-bought. Earl Grey tends to get a little bitter if it is oversteeped, so be sure to use double the amount of tea to get double strength tea for your tea latte instead of simply letting the tea sit longer. Also, feel free to use more vanilla if you like your drink a little sweeter.

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Christmas Morning Coffee

Spices can really do a lot for a cup of coffee on a cold morning – and I’m not talking about adding a flavored syrup to your morning brew. When real spices are added to the beans before you brew the coffee, they really become a part of the drink and give it a lot of depth, rather than just adding some sweetness. Trader Joe’s has Gingerbread and Wintry Blend coffees that include whole spices with their beans, and in both cases the blends work well. It’s just as easy to add the spices at home to whatever coffee you have on hand.

This coffee is a spin on those two Trader Joe’s coffees and is perfect – rich and spicy – for Christmas morning. Use a dark or medium roast so the coffee isn’t overshadowed by the flavor of the spices. If you use whole bean coffee and grind it yourself, you can start with whole spices or pieces of them, like chunks of cinnamon sticks. If you use ground coffee, add a few dashes of preground spices to your grounds before turning on your coffeemaker.
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