So if you’ve been reading our stuff for awhile, back in February, we created a post about how you can save (a ton) of money by learning how to create your own Starbucks frappuccino for $0.32.
“According to The Daily Meal, last year, we spent an average of about $30 to $40 a week at Starbucks - that's about $2,080 a year!”
Now, I don’t know about you but if you venture into Starbucks as much as we do… that’s a lot of cash money spent on coffee. Saving approximately $2k a year just by learning how to create my own Starbucks faves? Sign me up! So to start, we followed this recipe from a fellow DIYer, Kerry from Squawkfox, and she broke down the ingredients for your average frappe and wrote step-by-step instructions on how to make your own frappe.
Coffee
Milk
Sugar
Xanthan Gum (which we skimped out on because we figured we could finish it so fast the drink’s ingredients wouldn’t even have time to separate)
If you don't want to botch the ingredients like we did though, you can save with Starbucks coupons (extra 5-10% off) and shop their online clearance which will no doubt save you a lot more than picking up items from your local Starbucks. Our tip? Try off-price retail stores like Marshalls, TJ Maxx and Ross. They usually sell some past season's Starbucks coffee flavors for a lot less than you'll find in most places.
Looks simple enough right? My fellow comrade and I marched toward the kitchen to try our hand at this recipe. Despite being total DIY noobs (actually I’m only speaking for myself), we were confident we’d come up with something decent (and edible). I brought up the recipe on my phone and read them out loud. We rummaged through the pantry but couldn’t find the exact ingredients required. But that’s okay, challenge accepted.
Starbucks Doubleshot Espresso
Stevia (that we ended up not using because the doubleshot espresso already has sugar)
Milk
Ice
Paper cups (that doubled as measuring cups…)
I know what you’re thinking at this point. WHY.
But see, we were optimistic despite the major setbacks and so, driven (blinded) by our optimism, we pushed forward.
After using the dixie cups to measure out what we thought to be 2 cups of ice and ¾ cup of milk (which made absolutely no sense because there is milk in the Starbucks Doubleshot Espresso and that went totally unaccounted for), we proceeded to dump all of it into that there fine smoothie container. Assembled, blended and ta-da… that’s what it looks like. Two tall cups worth of mystery frappe.
Side note: we also had to add more ice and re-blend because it wasn’t icey enough.
Next, the whipped cream. At this point, we figured, if mystery frappe does not taste good, it might as well look good right? We nod in agreement and head for the refrigerator only to find… lo and behold, there is no whipped cream. But guess what we did find? Frozen cool whip! Challenge accepted.
We thought we had a 85.98% success rate if we gather some of the frozen cool whip, put it in a ziploc bag, massaged it back to life and squeeze it out cupcake decorator style. We think a lot of things.
It was too frozen. The massage did nothing. We proceeded to squeeze frozen cool whip out of a zip lock bag and unsurprisingly, it sunk to the bottom of our mystery frappe. All save for this gem:
So this is how we failed at creating a Starbucks Frappuccino for $0.32. But that’s just life, trying and failing and trying again as corny as that may be. But we did manage to one thing successfully, we tried something new, it tasted horrible, but look at this pretty picture:
Okay so the picture isn’t that great either. The dying plant really adds a nice touch to it eh? But main point: we tried. And then we also fed it to our fellow co-workers because why not. They ended up looking like that cool guy up there. Our deception earned us some well deserved glares but that's okay. Because they know, that we tried.
Have you tried making any of your own Starbucks Frappuccinos (or other Starbucks creations)? How'd that work out for you?
