aureate & aromatic

The eleventh drink of my thirty day book as a beverage series is an iced latte with banana oat milk and a blueberry cold foam. The colors were pulled from my paperback edition of We Hunt The Flame by Hafsah Faizal.

This cover is so pretty. There weren’t too many colors to work with so I did the best I could. The resulting bev wasn’t too sweet and was a perfect balance of both fruits.

This beverage’s name is:

‘blazing bananberry’

Name Explained: Pulling from the flame in the book’s title, and attempting to keep the alliteration, resulted in blazing. Bananberry is the portmanteau I came up with for banana and blueberry since those were the main flavors in this drink.

Banana Milk: When I went to Seoul last year I had banana milk for the first time and it was amazing. I’ve never had it in a latte before and the flavors surprisingly worked really well together. I drew on that memory for the flavor profile of this drink. This banana milk did not taste exactly the same, but it was still enjoyable. I drew on the recipe I normally use when making bananas foster for my French toast and tweaked it a bit so it would form a syrup I could infuse the milk with. I used oat milk since I figured it’d bring a nice nutty flavor that would mimic a baked good.

Blueberry Cold Foam: I don’t normally add fruit syrups or cold foams to my lattes, but since this recipe has a banana base, I thought the addition of blueberry could accentuate that – not to mention, the color would be ideal for the cover. When I blended freeze dried blueberries and added it to the cold foam, the result was a much more purple hue than I’d envisioned. So I added some blue spirulina to balance the color out. The resulting foam was so delicious, I imagine having it with a latte that doesn’t have banana would still work just as well!

RATING: Overall I’d give the final drink a 4.8.

Flavor Combination: The final latte tasted like a baked loaf of banana bread with some blueberries in coffee form. Neither fruit overpowered the other and the drink was not overly sweet.

Ease: The step in this process that was the most complex was making the banana syrup, but it came together much quicker than the fruit jams and syrups for the other drinks in this series. Additionally, I ground my freeze dried blueberries but using a pre ground powder or syrup would simplify things. Overall it wasn’t too difficult, each part of the drink just required a bit of work.

Appearance: I’m so happy with how the drink came out. I felt the addition of the plantain strips as a garnish brought a pop of color that tied everything together color-wise since you can’t see the banana in the drink. As I mentioned earlier, the first draft of this beverage had a much more purple cold foam, and this final version was a near identical match to the cover.

Ways to Improve: I don’t think there’s anything I’d change about this. I’ve made it several times since coming up with the idea, haha.

Here’s the spreadsheet for all of the tools and ingredients used:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1r98ituvMhsrjiXfidDUlMtrU0u_YwIdNyY_rlxD-8YA/edit?gid=891834841#gid=891834841

I’ve also provided the information below for added ease~

Glass Cups (alternative): https://amzn.to/3WgejmO

Unsalted Butter (exact): https://amzn.to/4jLglpP

Brown Sugar (exact): https://amzn.to/3JQLQ49

Agave (exact): https://amzn.to/3KzWfkO

Cinnamon Powder (exact): https://amzn.to/49qwZaK

Vanilla Bean Paste (exact): https://amzn.to/49ukN8U

Coffee (exact): https://amzn.to/4qyDD50

Freeze Dried Blueberries (exact): Trader Joe’s

Freeze Dried Blueberries (alternative): https://amzn.to/4pZviHA

Oat Milk (exact): https://amzn.to/3JlAYuT

Whole Milk (exact): https://tgleedairy.com/products/whole-milk-plastic-quart/

Heavy Whipping Cream (exact): https://www.publix.com/pd/publix-whipping-cream-heavy/RIO-PCI-112684

Blue Spirulina (exact): https://amzn.to/4q3cZ4o

Plantain Strips (exact): https://luluplantainchips.com/products/plantain-strips-salted?srsltid=AfmBOop2zru8My3fmCNQNkXxtbPW8w9YmC9XYHNVQQRWBqly78o2JbHx

Plantain Strips (alternative): https://amzn.to/49GpmM5

Frother (exact): https://amzn.to/3KS1c8J

Here’s a quick video showing how I made the drinks:

@aureateandaromatic

Ignore this sitting in my drafts for a month 🫠 The making video for my “We Hunt the Flame” banana bread oat latte with blueberry cold foam. Another drink I tweaked and didn’t refilm, lol. The blueberry and spirulina thicken the foam which is why the final drink looks a bit flatter than the one at the start of the video, but they taste the same, hehe. Gave this a 4.8 ⭐ and have made this many, many times.  ⚠️ NOTE: Forgot to show it but there’s 1/2 tsp vanilla paste in the banana syrup 🙃 When I went to Seoul last year I had banana milk for the first time and it was amazing. I’ve never had it in a latte before and the flavors surprisingly worked really well together. I drew on that memory for the flavor profile of this drink. Ingredients and ratios already posted for anyone interested~ #Recipe #wehunttheflame #bananabreadlatte #BookTok #bookasabev

♬ Sabry Aalil Remix – Sherine

Thanks for reading, have a great week!
~ C.C.