Starbucks Shaken Espresso Recipe (Iced Brown Sugar Oat Milk)

Starbucks Shaken Espresso Recipe: Cinnamon, Chocolate, Coffee

Starbucks Iced Brown Sugar OatMilk Shaken Espresso Recipe … What a mouthful (of a TASTY drink on a hot summer day)! This new drink made its debut on the Starbucks menu a while back (the non-chocolate version). Starbucks describes it as “Starbucks Blonde roast espresso, brown sugar and cinnamon” with “an oat beverage and ice for a cool lift to power you through your day.” Sounds tempting! It’s actually 4 pumps of brown sugar syrup, a dash of cinnamon powder, 3 espresso shots (a double shot of espresso AND more), ice and oat milk. But … I may have added a new ingredient to this one. Scroll down to keep reading!

Chocolate! I can’t make any recipe without having at least one thought cross my mind on how chocolate would taste in it. *Maybe* I even googled what chocolate curry would taste like (no, I know what you’re thinking. I never ended up trying it out)! But in this drink, I wanted the chocolate-cinnamon-coffee flavor, rather than just the cinnamon-y flavor of it’s-the-end-of-October-and-Thanksgiving-is-approaching. Can’t go wrong with a touch of cocoa!

I’m no Starbucks barista, but what I enjoy about making these copycat Starbucks drinks in my own home is that I can easily add in or remove another shot of espresso, add or remove extra cinnamon and so on. Heck, I can even use cold brew instead of espresso shots. You can customize it to exactly how you want it, and that’s the best part!

Why You’ll Love This Starbucks Shaken Espresso Recipe

Budget-Friendly: The grande size of this drink costs around $6 USD, which is quite a lot seeing as it’s, um, pretty delicious. Meaning, it would break my wallet if I drank one everyday. But with the version at home, you can buy a few simple ingredients at your local grocery store in bulk and make this for days without it costing as much over the long run as it would to get it directly at Starbucks.

Reduced Sugar: You can control how much sugar you put in the drink recipe. The Starbucks version is very sweet and uses a simple syrup that they add multiple pumps of into the drink. I didn’t choose to make a simple syrup here, so you can thank me when you shave the extra ten minutes off the time it takes to this!

For the sugar though, you can opt to use a healthier sweeter (such as xylitol mixed with molasses – see below in substitutions for details) to make brown sugar rather than use brown sugar itself. Coconut sugar is also another option, that’s similar to brown sugar for the purposes of this drink.

Chocolate or Not?: I made this drink by adding cocoa powder into the basic iced brown sugar oat milk shaken espresso. Originally, it doesn’t contain cocoa, but I loved the addition of the chocolate flavour. Feel free to omit it, but it gives you more options to customize the drink.

Substitutions: Wet Ingredients

Milk: Cold oat milk, cashew milk, or any other kind of milk will work (non-dairy milk, to keep it vegan). I used oat milk because that was partially the point of this drink (aka, iced shaken oat milk espresso drink from Starbucks). I also like the nutty flavour of oat milk.

Coffee: Starbucks uses their own brand of espresso. I keep a bag of their Dark Roast beans at home. I use these to make a half cup of coffee using two shots of espresso (I let the coffee drip longer into the cup rather than removing the cup right when the two shots are done).

Vanilla Extract: Always lurking in the background, vanilla is optional but it adds a flavour boost that I love. You can even scrape some fresh vanilla beans if you have them on hand! They’re very strong so a little goes a long way. Starbucks doesn’t add any toasted vanilla syrup here, but it definitely adds this amazing caramelized vanilla taste.

Substitutions: Dry Ingredients

Brown Sugar: Feel freel to use light brown sugar or dark brown sugar here. I like dark brown sugar because of the heavier taste of molasses! As mentioned above, you can use coconut sugar directly. You can also use xylitol, monkfruit or erythritol mixed with molasses to make a healthier sweetener. Take one cup of sugar and one tablespoon of molasses (or make just a quarter of this recipe if you don’t need too much). Mix it with a blender or a fork until well combined, and it should look like brown sugar!

If you’re not so keen on the brown sugar taste, pure maple syrup. can also act as a sweetener. I would start out with only 1.5 tablespoons instead of 3 if using syrup.

Cinnamon: The ground cinnamon shouldn’t be substituted here, because it adds a ton of flavor to this. Without it, it’s basically just a plain iced coffee drink.

Cocoa powder: Feel free to use whatever type of cocoa powder you have. Dutch-processed, regular, dark or just plain omit.

Starbucks Shaken Espresso Recipe Notes

• Sift the cocoa powder through a sieve before using. Sometimes cocoa powder likes to clump together.
• Once the hot coffee is ready, whisk in the cocoa powder, brown sugar and cinnamon to dissolve it in here before letting it cool. This ensures the cocoa powder is evenly distributed. The brown sugar will also melt with the heat and not leave pieces of sugar at the bottom of the drink. This is also described in the full recipe steps below.
• If you don’t have an espresso maker, use instant coffee granules in the proportions listed on the back of the bottle to make a half cup of instant coffee.
• For best results, use cold milk – not room temperature!
• Use a mason jar or some type of tall glass that can be covered with a lid, even a cocktail shaker! You’ll need to shake it up to mix everything together well.

More Starbucks Copycat Drinks You’ll Love

Vanilla Latte (Iced)

Peppermint Mocha (Iced)

White Chocolate Mocha (Iced)

Java Chip Frappuccino

Golden Milk

Mocha Coconut Frappuccino

Coffee Frappuccino

If you make this Starbucks Shaken Espresso recipe, leave a comment and star rating! Don’t forget to tag your photos @peanut_palate on Instagram. Enjoy! Reference to Starbucks drink found here.