Thursday, November 15, 2012

Gingerbread Latte

I love my crock pot. Seriously. I love that I can make it ahead of time, say when the kids are not cranky or even the night before and magic, dinner is ready whenever we are. No rushing to make sure dinner is ready when my husband walks through the door (not the June Cleaver way, more the "the kids wanted to eat an hour ago but we eat as a family" way) only he hit construction on the way home and now things are cold. So of course I fell in girl love with Stephanie O'Dea and her amazing A Year of Slow Cooking blog.

I found her Taco Soup recipe by accident and was delighted by the results. Needless to say, I have used it on many important occasions due to its popularity. My sister even bought me her first book as a Christmas gift. I use it often, my only complaint being that it doesn't have any pictures. Granted it was done purposely so that the book was affordableut I love pictures. (I do realize even as I type this that I tend to not include a bunch of pictures. I swear I will get better at picture taking eventually.)

While I have used it for dinner, sometimes 4 nights a week, I have had limited experience using it for breakfast or dessert. The few times we have tried it has failed miserably, even using tested recipes such as Steel-Cut Oatmeal and Creme Brulee.

Alas, when I ran out of Chai teabags and 1. was too lazy to run to the store for one item (dragging two kids along) 2. Staying within my $100/week budget (you can read the first post here) I decided to see if I could find a good recipe. Of course I found a crock pot recipe but I also stumbled upon a recipe for Gingerbread Lattes in the crock pot! Unable to contain myself, I emailed a friend asking her to come try them with me. I put the ingredients together in my 2 qt crock pot the night before so that no matter how crazy the morning got, I would be able to just turn our lattes on.
note: the tin foil contains ground cloves and a cinnamon stick. I ran out of cloves and popped over to my parents to borrow some, hence the tin foil.

I did not include the sugar because I wanted to be able to give the kids a little warm gingerbread milk with honey.

When I woke up this morning, I took it out of the refrigerator and turned it on high. An hour later it was not too warm so I steamed a cup of it for my husband before work. An hour after that, it was as thick and creamy as eggnog. I made L1 a cup with honey and myself one with sugar and an espresso shot.

The verdict? L1 liked it, he had two small cups. My husband said it was strong. I realise I don't like gingerbread lattes. After tasting it I realised that I have tried one at Starbucks before and this tasted just like it. I am thinking I wasn't that thrilled with it then either. My friend told me that it tasted like gingerbread but then we were interrupted my crying babies so I didn't get a full review. If you like Starbucks version, check this one out. If you aren't sure, spend the $4 on it there first. If you like it, give this recipe a go. If you don't you won't have wasted any time or ingredients on trying it.

What seasonal coffees do you like?

This article was shared on Wildcrafting Wednesday.

7 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing your results with us! Wondered over from Show & Share Wednesday #13. I shared my Ginger Molasses Cookies on the link party, so thought I would check out your ginger bread latte review. Not sure if I would like it in a drink form. I usually like my coffee plain.

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    1. Haha! Thanks for coming to visit. As I said in my post, they weren't my thing however I know tons of people who absolutely love them. Me, give me a good cookie any day. I am planning on trying a molasses pumpkin pie recipe. It will post in a couple of days. Again, thanks for visiting.

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  2. YUMMY!! I'd love to have you join my Pin Me Linky Party because this is an awesome recipe!

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    1. Thanks for the invitation. I linked up. Thanks for showing me another great site. I can't wait to read your future posts.

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    2. Thanks Mum! Hope to see you back next week!

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  3. I really need to get more familiar with my crock pot so I can come to love it too! lol
    Thank you for linking up with the Clever Chicks this week; I hope you’ll join us again!

    Cheers,
    Kathy Shea Mormino
    The Chicken Chick
    http://www.The-Chicken-Chick.com

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  4. Thanks for the recipe! Gingergread can be good and bad! Sounds like I might try it though. Holly

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