Sort-of Gingerbread Latte

I know that we're still in pumpkin spice latte season but as our calendar has begun filling up with November and December commitments my thoughts have turned to gingerbread lattes.

There are all kinds of 'make it at home' gingerbread latte recipes out there. The one I tried this morning calls for a homemade spiced simple syrup added to steamed milk and coffee. It's not bad - I don't think it is as strong as a genuine Starbucks gingerbread latte but with a few tweaks (more ginger? add molasses for some of the sugar?) it could be. It's no page 821. But it's pretty good. Here's what I did:

Spiced Simple Syrup
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
1/8 tsp cinnamon
1 tbsp ginger sugar mix

Ginger Sugar Mix
Combine 1 tbsp sugar and 1 tsp powdered ginger

Combine your ingredients for Spiced Simple Syrup in a small saucepan. Heat over medium heat, stirring constantly until sugar dissolves. Remove from heat and cool. Add 2 tbsp of simple syrup to 1 cup steamed milk combined with 1/2 cup coffee.

You might want to start by just adding 1 tbsp of the simple syrup then add more to suit your taste. And the original recipe called for a scant teaspoon of vanilla, which I forgot to add since I was also putting away groceries while making this. Any coffee will do, but at our house we have developed a taste for Kona coffee, which is grown in Hawaii. Which makes it a wee bit pricey. We first discovered Kona coffee at the Polynesian Resort at Disney. Every morning D. or I would go for a run, stop at the coffee bar on the way back and then relax on our balcony with our morning java until the kids woke up. Our view:


I've since discovered I can get really good Kona coffee close to home through The Fire Roasted Coffee Company. Haven't been able to do much about replicating the view though.