It's the pumpkin season! Whether you're experiencing a beautiful and warm Indian Summer or if it's already gotten cold, wet and gloomy outside, the pumpkin spice which has become the signature flavor of the fall season seems to work fantastically with both the gold and the grey. You could go to a big chain coffee shop and pay way too much money for a drink that will surely be yummy, but nutrition-wise will equal junk food and calorie-wise will be the equivalent of your dinner.. Or you could opt for making it at home, a much healthier version tailored especially to you, that will taste even better:)
Whether you're a latte person, a tea person or even if you don't drink either one of those, here's how you can enjoy some delicious pumpkin-spice flavors warming you up from the inside and introducing a note of hygge into your autumn day (or night) without ingesting any unnecessary junk and without breaking the bank;)
In this recipe I share with you how I make my pumpkin-spice drink, but just like with anything else I share, this is the way I do it and the recipe is only a recommendation, a guideline you're very welcome to follow, but you know yourself best so if you prefer to alter it in some way- go ahead and adjust it to your liking. However, I do encourage you to try it this way at least once so you could see what this particular drink tastes like.
For this recipe you'll need some pumpkin puree which you can surely buy in a canned version, but I recommend you to make it yourself- it's much healthier and cheaper this way and it's also extremely simple to do. Here's how I do it. I've found any type of pumpkin to work here, but my go-to for a pumpkin-spice anything is definitely the butternut squash, closely followed by the Hokkaido pumpkin, due to their natural sweetness. Just make sure you don't steam/roast your pumpkin with salt or any savory spices as this is a sweet recipe.
A note on your beverage of choice:
The Golden Milk version
If you'd like to have this pumpkin spice drink in the afternoon or the evening hours, I strongly recommend skipping the coffee and tea (especially if you're into green, yellow, white or black tea) and just going for the "golden milk" version. The "golden milk" version (using just plant-based milk of choice) is also perfect if you're not a coffee or tea person at all.. or if you don't understand mixing tea with milk (I know something about that as for most of my life I couldn't comprehend how people could do so.. and now I absolutely adore drinking my tea with milk- plant milk of course... (more about plant-milks coming soon)). In this case you'd use the whole cup of your unsweetened plant-based milk of choice.
The Coffee/Latte version
If you're opting for the latte version, prepare your coffee/latte as you normally would, for example 1/2cup of coffee and 1/2cup of plant milk. Due to coffee's long half-life of about 6 hours, I recommend not to drink it, ideally, less than 12 hours before your bedtime, especially if you tend to have trouble with falling asleep naturally. However, for some types of mind-body constitution 6-4 hours before bed could still be okay.
In my case, since coffee and I have a bit of a slippery slope relationship, I need to watch out for how much I drink and what time of the day it is. For my particular mind-body constitution, coffee really needs to be taken in occasionally (if at all), only until mid-day, and I usually dilute it with water and plant milk quite a lot. I also brew it with cardamom and I make sure I don't drink it on an empty stomach. Otherwise I suffer completely unnecessarily, both mentally and physiologically.
(If you speak Ayurveda: I'm very high, nearly equal amounts of both Pitta and Vata, hence the above guidelines, however, as with everything, we're each very different and what works for me may not necessarily work for you so if you're curious on how to take your coffee so it doesn't create any undesired effects on your body and mind, I suggest you contact a holistic health practitioner who could advise you on that- you can also get in touch and book a session with me if you like.)
The Tea version
If you're prepping your pumpkin spice drink with tea also make it the way you normally would, but if you don't use milk, in the case of this recipe I'd make sure that at least 1/2 (if not more or all) of the liquid is plant milk. You could even brew your tea in the plant milk instead of water.
Depending on the amount of caffeine in your tea, I'd also pay attention to the time of the day when you drink it- in most cases it might be wise to avoid caffeine-containing teas (green, black, white, yellow..) in the late afternoon and evening hours of the day.
Herbal teas and rooibos don't contain caffeine, so they're safe to drink at any time of the day, but I personally haven't tried this recipe with any herbal, fruit or rooibos tea yet.. mostly because I didn't think the taste of any of the naturally caffeine-free teas I have would go well with the pumpkin spice- but perhaps your taste buds would love the mix of pumpkin spice and whatever tea you have... I'm guessing the "winter" teas with high notes of cloves and cinnamon could actually work wonderfully here, but I haven't yet had a chance to try it out.
A quick note on the frothability of plant milks
Different plant milks have different frothability, but I find that even the ones that in my experience have been the hardest to foam (for instance almond milk) froth quite neatly in this case due to the fact that we're using a blender here and not a regular frother. However, in general I do find that soy and oat milks tend to froth much better than nut milks, at least this has been my experience. (I do not buy the 'barista' kind plant milks as in order to increase their frothability they come with a lot of additives, including lots of added sugar and oil and that's just not cool.. I'd rather blend the purer plant milk).
If you want to go totally home-made you absolutely CAN make your own plant milk, I've done it countless times, especially back when plant milks weren't as widely available, I hope to share those recipes soon.
Simple, homemade Golden Pumpkin-Spice Drink - Milk/Latte/Tea
Ingredients:
1/2 - 1 tsp Golden Milk Spice Mix (recipe here), (I usually use about 3/4 tsp), make sure to make yours with allspice or add a pinch of allspice to your drink if your GM mix is sans allspice
1 cup of your drink of choice: unsweetened plant milk* by itself or with coffee or tea (see notes above; whatever you go for I'd make sure it's about 1 cup's worth of liquid all together- if you increase the amount here you might want to adjust the amounts of the other ingredients as well)
1 Tbsp of pumpkin puree (here's how to make it in bulk and always have it on hand) or about 1/4 cup of steamed or baked pumpkin pieces, either way it's about 20-30g
1-2 pitted dates (adjust according to the desired sweetness) you could also add maple syrup additionally or instead of the dates, but I personally prefer my sugars coming as much as possible from whole-food sources that also contain fiber
small pinch of salt
small pinch of freshly ground black pepper** *Most unsweetened plant milks are actually naturally very sweet, but some are sweeter than others. I find that with unsweetened oat milk I rarely add any dates, because it's already very sweet, but for instance, with unsweetened almond milk I tend to add in a date or two to sweeten the drink a little more. ** We're adding the pepper for the taste, all of it benefits but most importantly here for better turmeric absorption, (you can read more about it here).
Method:
Option for those with blenders that can stand warm temperatures:
1- Blend all the ingredients together regardless of whether your liquid of choice is warm or cooled down. If it's cooked down you might want to warm it up in a saucepan after you blend it.
Option for those whose blenders can't do warm temperatures, but you just can't be bothered following all the steps:
1- Blend everything cold (if using tea or coffee, make sure it's cooled down first) and warm the blended drink up in a saucepan over a medium heat.
General recipe:
0- Optional: If your dates are quite dry and if you have time, first soak them in 1/2 of the warm plant milk or in your tea or coffee for a few minutes.
1- In a small saucepan warm up 1/2 half of the milk (or brew your tea or coffee in 1/2cup of water and/or milk). Here's also where you might want to throw in the dates if they're very dry.
2- Add in the Golden Milk spice mix along with the allspice (if not included in your GM mix).
3- Once your golden milk, tea or coffee is done, take it off the heat and allow it to cool down enough to be poured into your blender.
4- In the meantime, in a blender, blend the other 1/2 cup of plant milk with the pitted dates (take them out of your warm drink if you were soaking them) and the pumpkin puree or pumpkin pieces, the salt and pepper (and anything else you might be using, for instance some maple syrup). Blend everything until you achieve a uniform, milkshake-like consistency.
5- Once your golden milk, tea or coffee has cooled down enough, add it to your "milkshake" and blend everything together until it's all one delicious pumpkin-spice drink.
If you like pumpkin spice you may also want to try this recipe for the pumpkin-spice golden oatmeal!
