Save Money by Making Frappuccinos At Home
What both tastes good and saves you money? Well, this copycat recipe for the Caramel Brulee Frappuccino hits both those marks!
If you follow my wealth journey on Instagram, you know that I am obsessed with this seasonal drink. I overindulge in buying it during the winter months then crave it for the rest of the year! Considering it is a seasonal, drink, you cannot purchase it throughout the year. So, why not learn it and be able to make it year round!
Therefore, in search of a way to save money on my coffee obsession, and to help others in search for this recipe, I spent weeks of trial and error to find a similar-tasting drink that you can make from home!
In this article I will be discussing how to make a replica of the Caramel Brulee Frappucino, and how to do a copycat version! I’ll go through two different methods and ingredients to make this drink.
Ingredients for the Copycat Caramel Brulee Frappucino
You can find all the ingredients for the homemade drink at your local grocery store and online. I was able to find the syrups and sauce for cheaper at World Market.
- Coffee – 1 cup. Any kind works, black coffee is preferred
- Milk – 1 cup. I prefer nut milk for this recipe, especially if it has vanilla flavoring added
- Butter Pecan Syrup – 3-4 Tbsp.
- Salted Caramel Syrup – 1 Tbsp.
- Torani Caramel Sauce – 1-2 Tbsp., Additional for topping
- Whipped Cream/Reddi-Wip
- Ice – 1-2 cups. More makes it like a “coffee slushie”
Cost of a Caramel Brulee Frappucino
On average It costs around $5.60 to buy a Frappuccino from Starbucks, no tip included. However, it costs significantly less to make it from home! If you were to make a Frappucino at home, it would cost on average $1.62.
Let’s go through the cost of each ingredient that was on the ingredient list above for this Frappuccino recipe so you can see how much money you will save!
- Coffee: An average 20oz bag of coffee will make 27 cups of coffee. The average price for a 20oz bag of coffee is around $8, making each cup around $0.30.
- Milk or Nut Milk: A gallon of milk costs approximately $3.20. It costs $0.20 per cup of milk.
- Butter Pecan Syrup: $6.20 for bottle of 375ml. This costs $0.68 per Frappucino.
- Salted Caramel Syrup: $7.95 for bottle of 750ml. This costs $0.15 per Frappucino.
- Torani Caramel Sauce: $4.50 for bottle of 16.50z. This costs $0.13 per Frappucino.
- Whipped Cream: $3.20 for a bottle, at 20 uses each serving, this costs $0.16 per Frappucino.
- Ice: FREE
In total, this results in an average of $1.62 per homemade Frappucino drink.
Is it worth all the effort?
If you buy 50 Frappucinos throughout the year, it would cost about $280. If you made the copycat recipe instead, it would cost around $81 over the year. Over a series of 5 years, that’s a savings of $1,324.
How to Make a Frappucino Replica
Taking a step away from the copycat version, let’s look at how to make a replica of this drink at home.
If you look at the ingredients that Starbucks gives us publicly on their website for the Caramel Brulee Frappuccino, you’ll need coffee, whipped cream, the caramel brulee sauce, milk, ice, and the Caramel Brulee topping.
So for this drink, you need two unique ingredients: The Caramel Brulee sauce and the caramel topping.
Now, unfortunately I have done an incredible amount of research to replicate this product and I could not find a comparable a sauce that was a generic version. However, you can buy the exact sauce online! At a steep price.
Caramel Brulee Sauce
There are really two only places that you can find this sauce. You either need to go to Walmart.com and buy through a third party or you need to go to eBay.
This sauce is an expensive product! On average it’s about $50.00 for a 63 fluid ounce version of the sauce. You’d get 40 drinks out of the carton of sauce, based on calculations regarding how much sauce Starbucks puts in the drink. That’s adding around $1.25 per drink you make at home.
And, beware! The Caramel Brulee sauce that is used in the Caramel Brulee Frappuccino only lasts a month or two. To get your money’s worth, you’d have to be making a ton of Frappuccino’s to use all of the sauce up within the month!
Caramel Brulee Topping
If you’ve had this drink, you know that it’s those little crunchy pieces that make this Frappuccino amazing!
Similar to the sauce, there really is no good replica out there. You’ have to buy the real topping if you really want to replicate this drink, and the only place you can buy is eBay.
To be honest, I’m kind of convinced that people stole the product from Starbucks and are reselling onto eBay because people are selling these small bottles anywhere from $30 to $50 dollars, each!
So, again if you really want to make this exact replica of the Caramel Brulee Frappuccino, you’re going to spend about $50 on the sauce and up to $50 on the little bottle of caramel topping.
At around $3.00, this is still an option to save money! Yet, you can save half the cost with a copycat version!
Copycat Caramel Brulee Frappucino Recipe
Let’s go into how to make the copycat recipe:
- Add 1 cup coffee, 1 cup milk (or nut milk), 1-2 cups of ice, syrup, and sauce into blender.
- Blend until all ice is crushed and ingredients are mixed evenly.
- Pour into your cup of choice.
- Top with a layer of whipped cream (like Reddi-Wip) and drizzle caramel sauce on top.
A few tips:
- Use cold coffee. After making a pot of coffee, I measure out 1 cup and set it in the fridge to cool for a few minutes
- More ice makes a thicker drink.
- Syrup is not sauce. They can be interchangeable for flavoring, but you’ll get more of your money’s worth by buying syrup for flavoring. Sauce is best as a topping on your whipped cream and to decorate the inside of your cup with.
Summary
If you don’t buy Frappuccino’s that often, it may not be worth all the effort to buy all these ingredients. However, if you’re looking for a way to save money or you want to spice up your coffee game in the morning, this is an inexpensive option!