DIY: Coffee Creamer

I've never been a huge coffee drinker, but I do drink more now than I used to. At home, Sean and I usually make a couple batches on the weekend mornings, saving some for cold coffee drinks during the week (adding sugar while it's still warm).

In a small glass, I put in some ice, fill it about half full with coffee and add a splash of skim milk. Makes a delicious iced coffee drink with my breakfast.

If we weren't on a budget and could afford premium wonderful-tasting coffee beans, then I'd probably drink it black. But since ours never tastes that great on its own, we normally add sugar and milk. We've recently started buying whole milk regularly for our one year old, so at least we now have that on hand (skim milk just doesn't really cut it).

But even so, I'm a little bored with coffee drinking. I need some more flavor. And since our family is getting better at the do-it-yourself routine, I'm looking for ways to make our own creamer.

Just to be sure I'm making the right decision, I did a little bit of looking at foodfacts.com to see what's in the store brand containers.

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Store-bought Coffee Creamers

Doing a search for "coffee creamer" on foodfacts.com will bring up 283 products (both liquid and powder). On this website, all products are given a grade from A to F (they call it a "Health Score Report Card"). You can also see the ingredient list along with the nutritional information, and they tell you good and bad things about each product.

Here's the breakdown of how many coffee creamer products there are per grade:

A: 0
B: 1
C or C-: 16
D+, D or D-: 52
F: 214

(of the 43 powders, all but one received an F)

So what's in these products? Let's look at one example (ingredient descriptions come from foodfacts):

Coffee-Mate Original Coffee Creamer

Water

Corn Syrup Solids - sugar produced from cornstarch

Cottonseed Oil - a viscous oil obtained from the seed of the cotton plant

Dipotassium Phosphate - a highly water-soluble salt often used as a fertilizer, food additive and buffering agent

Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil - basically it contains trans-fats (the bad fat)

Sodium Caseinate - a modified protein extracted from milk (considered non-dairy)

Artificial Flavors

Beta Carotene Added for Color

Carrageenan - a thickening agent obtained from seaweed (large amounts have harmed test animals colons; small amounts in food are generally recognized as safe)

Polysorbate 60 - an emulsifying agent that helps stabilize two substances that will not normally mix. It is made of corn, palm oil and petroleum. It does not spoil and sometimes used to replace dairy or fat to extend the products shelf life. Polysorbates are made by combining ethylene oxide, which is a precursor to antifreeze, with a sugar alcohol derivative.

So in summary, this creamer is made of water, sugar, salt, oil, trans fats, artificial flavors and preservatives. Yum.

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Homemade Coffee Creamers

Since I'm new to this idea, I can't offer you a long list of creamer recipes that I have tried and can verify are delicious (I can offer just one, listed below). But I did do some searching online for what others have done, and there are lots of good ideas out there. To give you a starting point, here are two sources of what looks like good recipes to try:

Deliciously Organic: Homemade Coffee Creamer

5 delicious homemade coffee creamers

In my first attempt at this, I wanted to use what I already had in my kitchen. And since you can't go wrong with chocolate, that's what I used. Here's what I put together:

1 cup whole milk

1 Tbsp white sugar

2 tsp baking cocoa

1 tsp vanilla extract

In a small pot, combine all ingredients. Stir over medium heat until dissolved. Store in the fridge.

I tried it this morning and it was pretty good. I'm looking forward to continuing to experiment with making my own creamer and to getting some recipes perfected. I'll share with you what I figure out...

Oh, and feel free to comment with any tips or recipes that you use!

Hot Cholcolate

This morning, Erin, Noah and I were the only ones at the park in this 50 degree weather (it wasn't that bad with heavy coats on). Oh, and don't worry, Sean was home with the sleeping little one.

When I noticed that their fingers were turning pink, I decided to lure them home with the promise of hot chocolate.

Once home, I looked in the pantry for my very old box of Swiss Miss. As they were downing the chocolatey goodness, I took a look at the ingredient list:

Sugar, Corn Syrup, Modified Whey, Cocoa (processed with Alkali), Hydrogenated Coconut Oil, Nonfat Milk, Calcium Carbonate, Less than 2% of: Salt, Dipotassium Phosphate, Mono- and Diglycerides, Artificial Flavor, Carrageenan.

Not good. Not good at all.

(I looked up Carrageenan. It's a thickening agent obtained from seaweed. Large amounts of it have harmed the colons of animals, according to foodfacts.com)

So from now on, I'll be making my own.

Hot Chocolate

for one serving: 

1 cup milk (skim, 2% or whole)
1 tbsp baking cocoa
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla

(maybe try adding cinnamon or nutmeg)

Heat milk in a saucepan on the stove on medium heat. Stir often to not scorch. When hot (but not boiling), dissolve cocoa and sugar. Mix in vanilla.

to make it extra creamy, add a splash of half and half.