Because There Aren't Enough Pumpkin Spice Latte Recipes...

The leaves started to change on the trees and so began my favorite of the seasons - fall. The most beautiful, the most comforting, and yet - the most short in length. Oh how I wish that fall in New England could actually extend until Thanksgiving instead of the winter creeping in much earlier than should be allowed.

Part of what makes the fall so wonderful is the food. Apples and cinnamon and nutmeg and roasting poultry and butternut squash and of course - pumpkin. Try to find a chain that doesn't cash in on the arrival of the Great Pumpkin; one look around while driving and you'll see advertisements for pumpkin lattes, donuts, bread, muffins, pie, bread pudding, soup, and whatever else people can create out of the big orange ball that seems to become prominent this time of year.

Before I had kids, I would pine for my first purchased Pumpkin Spice Latte (or "PSL" for the 140-character crowd). The first leaves would fall from the trees and I would be desperate for the spiced coffee. Now, however, I have found that dragging an infant and a toddler into a "FiveBucks" just doesn't make the PSL all it's cracked up to be. Unless, of course, I could make it at home in the same amount of time it takes to wrangle a toddler and lug a carseat into a coffee shop. Plus, then it would make my house smell all fall-like and comfortable too.

So I set off to research how people do it, and found that like any other recipe there were many iterations. I found one that used what I had in the house (I don't remember which one now), tweaked a couple of things, and came up with what I believe to be the perfect homemade Pumpkin Spice Latte recipe.

For me, anyways.

Note: If you are looking for a Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte, do a search for a copycat recipe. This... this is not Starbucks. It is, however, wonderful and full of fall comfort. 

Pumpkin Spice Latte

Ingredients: 

• 1.5 cups unsweetened vanilla almond milk (I used Almond Breeze)
• 1/4 cup canned pumpkin 
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
• 1.25 cups brewed strong coffee 

Directions:

• Combine everything except the coffee in a small saucepan and bring to a boil, whisking regularly. 
• Once it is boiling, bring down to a simmer and add coffee. If the coffee you're adding was already hot, turn off the heat before adding (mine tends to be room temp or chilled when I add it because I brew it ahead of time).
• Serve. Sip. Enjoy. 

A note: because this recipe calls for real pumpkin and not pumpkin-flavored syrup that is used at fine coffee establishments, there will be sediment at the bottom of your mug that not properly tended to will become sludge. I just keep a spoon in my mug and stir it between sips to reduce the amount of sludge at the end of the mug and make sure to get as much of the fall-pumpkiny-goodness in every sip.

Happy sipping!