Lots of us find it challenging to begin our day without a morning coffee. Yet, store-bought coffee creamer, which brings depth and luxury to your day’s initial beverage, can be rather expensive and potentially filled with numerous synthetic components.
But if you can’t do without your regular coffee creamer, don’t despair as it’s actually very easy to make it yourself at home. And once you have got the hang of creating the basic recipe, you can experiment to make all sorts of flavors to suit your own taste.
If you love coffee creamer but want to be a little healthier, then check out our healthy coffee creamer options later on in the article.
How to make coffee creamer at home
To make your basic coffee creamer at home is really simple. You need some condensed milk, regular milk, maple syrup, vanilla extract and arrowroot starch. Just combine them all together in a saucepan and simmer for around seven minutes, allow to cool and then store in the fridge. It’s really that simple.
If you want to try different flavors for your morning coffee, then you can swap out the vanilla extract with an alternative extract, to create your own unique coffee creamer. Try some of the following extracts depending on your taste and preference:
- Coconut
- Chocolate
- Hazelnut
- Peppermint
- Almond
- Cinnamon
You can add any flavor or combination of flavors you like, to come up with your own unique coffee creamer, or leave it plain, with no added flavor at all, for a really classic creamer taste. Once you have made your creamer you need to store it in the fridge and make sure it’s in an airtight container. It should last around a week. You might need to shake it before using.
How to make healthy coffee creamer
If you are trying to avoid shop bought creamer due to all the sugar and chemicals and want a creamer that’s a bit more diet friendly than the above traditional recipe, don’t worry, it’s very simple to make a healthy coffee creamy.
You can still enjoy your creamy coffee flavor without all the loaded calories, to help support your healthy diet, and you only need a few ingredients from the food cupboard to make it. Again, once you have the basic recipe, you can add any flavor you want to it.
For a basic healthy coffee creamer recipe you need the following ingredients:
- Unsweetened milk such as almond or coconut
- Arrowroot starch
- Raisins
- Pure vanilla extract
- Natural sweetener to taste
Instead of using sugar-loaded condensed milk and maple syrup, go with unsweetened milk such as almond milk, and you will get a sweet taste from adding the raisins and the vanilla extract but if you want it sweeter then add some natural sweetener or honey to achieve the flavor you desire.
You will need to put the unsweetened milk and raisins in a bowl and leave them in the fridge for around six hours. This will give the raisins time to soak into the milk and make it sweeter and thicker, to replace the usual unhealthy condensed milk.
Once finished, remove the raisins as these are no longer needed. You can then combine your homemade sweetened milk with all of your other ingredients in a saucepan and cook for around seven minutes.
Once combined, take the pan off the heat and then you have your basic healthy creamer. You can then add in your chosen flavor extract, stirring it into the cooled mixture. Your flavored creamer is now complete.
You will need to store it in the fridge, in an airtight container and will need to use it all up within a week, or it will go off. If you like to try a variety of flavors, you can always just store the basic creamer in the fridge and then pour it into your cup, add your chosen extract, and then add the coffee, for a different flavor every time.
Is coffee creamer bad for you?
Shop bought coffee creamer tends to be full of added sugar and chemicals so while it may last longer, it will give you a spike in sugar levels, followed by an unpleasant low, and is definitely not good for your waistline.
Homemade traditional coffee creamer is less full of chemicals, but no less full of sugar so if you like an occasional rich and sugary treat, it is fine, but again, it won’t help your waistline if you are drinking it regularly.
The healthy alternative outlined here might not taste quite as sweet but the good thing is, it is all natural and you can adjust and adapt the flavor to suit your own taste buds, without worrying about the effect on your health or on the scales.
