Mar 22

Mar 22 Books to Read Based on Your Spring Drink Order: Recipe Edition

Hey everyone!

Put some spring into your step with these delicious drinks! I’m so excited to bring you another seasonal book and drink collaboration with @princessreadsalot and @sushirainbow! @princessreadsalot came up with a ton of great book recommendations and we all brainstormed some delicious (and might I add, gorgeous) drinks to go with the books. Together we made these delicious drinks and I’m here to share the recipes so you can try them out at home!

Blooming Tea

Just add a blooming tea flower bulb to hot water and watch it bloom! You can find some flower bulbs to put in your tea from Amazon, or your local tea shops if they have them available.

Butterfly Pea Flower Lemonade

I used this recipe here for my butterfly pea flower lemonade. It was super easy to make and you only need lemons, sugar, butterfly pea flowers, and sparkling water. The first time I made this I followed the recipe almost exactly and the drink tasted really light and refreshing. However, it was also a bit bland. So for round 2 I tried to make a lemon syrup instead of just adding the lemon juice and sugar to the tea and stirring it. I did this in the hopes of amplifying the sweetness a bit. I made the lemon syrup by putting in equal amounts of sugar and lemon juice and boiling it down to a syrup consistency. When I added the pea flower tea to the lemon syrup and added the sparkling water, it ended up tasting more sour than sweet and I think it turned out worse than the original recipe LOL. Next time I think I’ll just add more sugar. This drink looks absolutely stunning though so you can easily impress your dinner guests with it’s beauty!

Goddess Smoothie

Ingredients:

1 cup of fruit (bananas, blueberries, grapes, and mango)

3 tablespoons of pink pitaya powder

2 tablespoons of vanilla yogurt

Ube extract

Heavy whipping cream

Steps:

In a blender combine fruit and pink pitaya powder. Add to cup.
Use a spoon or knife to spread yogurt over the top of the fruit.
Use a handmixer to blend ½ a cup of heavy whipping cream and 3 drops of ube extract. Mix until desired whipped consistency.
Add ube whipped cream to the top of the yogurt.
Mix (or keep layered) and enjoy!

Caramel Cloud Macchiato

Below is my version of the caramel cloud macchiato. One that you order from a café is made with 2 pumps vanilla syrup, 2 shots of espresso, a layer of foamed milk, and a drizzle of caramel.

Ingredients:

1 oz. of vanilla syrup

6 oz. of salted caramel brewed coffee

4 oz. of marshmallows

Salted caramel syrup

Steps:

Add all of the above ingredients into your preferred mug in the order they’re listed: vanilla syrup, coffee, marshmallows, and then drizzle with caramel. Enjoy!

Cookie Monster Shake

Ingredients:

3 scoops of Blue Moon Ice cream (If you can’t find blue moon, which is a flavour mostly midwest Americans can get, use vanilla ice cream and blue food colouring.)

¼ cup of milk

½ cup of Chocolate chips

Whipped Cream

Chocolate Chip Cookie

Steps:

Add ice cream, milk, and chocolate chips to the blender and blend.
Pour ice cream mix into a mug and top with whipped cream and a cookie. Enjoy!

Mint Shake

This drink was perfect for St. Patrick’s Day and was super easy to make as well. All you really need is vanilla ice cream, ice, milk, and peppermint flavouring. Oh, and green food colouring so it’s as green as a leprechaun. For my drink I just took all the ingredients listed above and blended them together. You can put however much you want of each ingredient to make the milkshake to your tastes. Also gradually add more drops of food colouring until you reach your preferred shade of green. Then if you want to be extra like me, top off your milkshake with some whipped cream and sparkly sprinkles! Here is another version of this recipe you can try as well.

Hazelnut Latte with Whipped Cream

A normal hazelnut latte is made with 2 pumps of hazelnut syrup, 2 espresso shots, and 6 oz. of milk. Below is how I made mine. I will add amounts, but different people like more or less milk.

Ingredients:

8 oz. of coffee brewed from Hazelnut flavoured coffee beans

Splash of Milk

Whipped cream

Steps:

1. Add the brewed coffee with a splash of milk and a dollop of whipped cream. Enjoy!

Iced Matcha Latte

Here is a super simple recipe for an iced matcha latte. I essentially followed the same steps as this recipe except I didn’t add sugar and I used regular milk instead of almond milk. This recipe is super versatile because you can add whatever amount of matcha, milk, or honey/ other sweeteners in order to make the drink to your liking. You can also use any type of milk! I absolutely love matcha lattes but I can never drink them because the caffeine in matcha will make my heart palpitate and give me an anxiety attack like no other. If caffeine does not affect you, then please add more matcha because strong matcha flavours are delicious and I’ll live vicariously through your drink choice 😂

Bubble Tea - Hojicha Milk Tea with White Pearls

This drink was a struggle and a half to make. Let me warn you. If you EVER buy pearls, always get the kind that is ready in 15 minutes or the ones that are easy to cook. Either get those or be committed to cooking these pearls for at least 6 hours or more. The milk tea turned out super yummy though! For the pearls I got a random bag of medium sized sago from my grocery store and it didn’t come with instructions so I had to google them. Here is a link to a guy testing out multiple ways to cook pearls so it’s a good reference. I cooked my pearls using the 30/30 method where you boil them for 30 minutes and let them sit in water for 30 minutes. I repeated this process 3 TIMES and my pearls still weren’t completely translucent. I ran out of time so I just used them for the picture but didn’t eat them. I added 1/4 cup of pearls and a ton of water when I cooked mine. I’m determined to try cooking these again though, hopefully with better results.

For the milk tea I made a sugar syrup of 1/2 cup water and 1/2 cup sugar. You can adjust the measurements to suit your yield. I boiled that down to a syrup and set it aside to cool. Then I boiled water and put approximately 3 cups of hot water and used 6 teabags and let that steep for the amount of time on the tea bag. You should usually use a ratio of 2:1 teabags per cup of water. Then I mixed the syrup and tea together and slowly added milk until it was just the right flavour for me. You can add more or less milk depending on how strong you want the flavour to be. I used hojicha tea bags and the result was DELICIOUS. It’s such a nice, refreshing drink for spring!

Golden Latte

For this drink I used turmeric honey that @princessreadsalot and @sushirainbow kindly sent me. They got it from Drizzle and the flavour was Turmeric Gold Raw Honey. There were so many recipes I found to make a Golden Latte and most were made with coconut or almond milk (or both). My recipe was super simple because I had the turmeric honey. All I did was heat up some original almond milk with a cinnamon stick, pour that into a mug, and then add as much turmeric honey as I needed for it to taste like a Golden Latte. It’s very cinnamon-y and has a bit of spice to it as well from black pepper. It reminds me of chai and it’s such a cozy drink for those spring nights.

There you have it! I can’t wait to see if you try any of these drinks. They were so fun to make! If you make a drink, post a pic and tag me (@nessas.lair) and @princessreadsalot and @sushirainbow on Instagram so we can share it and show the world your talent. LOL. I’d also love to hear if you have any more recommendations for future drink-book pairings or tweaks for the current recipes :)

Happy spring drinking!