Cookie Butter Iced Latte Recipe: The Speculoos Coffee Behind McDonald's Newest Drink, Made at Home

Cookie butter, the smooth spread made from spiced speculoos biscuits, has had a long second life as a coffee flavour, and this month it went mainstream. McDonald's launched a limited-time range of Cookie Butter drinks across the United States on 3 November, a Frappe, a Latte and an Iced Coffee. The New York Post, in a report carried by Yahoo on 27 October, described them as hot and cold versions topped with caramel cookie crumbs and vanilla whipped cream, and Daily Hive listed the Canadian line-up on launch day, with the latte made from cookie butter syrup and finished with speculoos crumble.

The idea did not start in a drive-through. Weeks earlier, on 21 September, the food creator Saloni Kukreja posted a layered Biscoff iced latte on Instagram, with warm cookie-butter milk under a cloud of hand-whipped coffee, as Gulf News reported on 23 September. It is exactly the kind of drink that travels well on social video: two clear layers, a crunchy topping and almost no skill required.

This version makes a syrup first, so you can build a drink in a minute on any morning. It gives you the cafe taste, with a little extra cinnamon.

The syrup matters more than it looks. Stirring a spoonful of cookie butter straight into cold milk leaves greasy clumps, because the spread is a thick paste of crushed biscuit bound with oil. Dissolving it in hot water with a little sugar gives a smooth, pourable liquid that mixes into iced drinks in seconds and carries the cinnamon and caramel notes evenly through the glass.

Ingredients

Makes 2 large iced lattes and about 100 ml of leftover syrup. Total time 15 minutes, plus 10 minutes cooling.

• 60 g smooth cookie butter (speculoos spread)
• 80 ml hot water
• 25 g light brown sugar
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 small pinch of fine salt
• 120 ml strong brewed coffee or 4 espresso shots (about 120 ml), cooled
• 300 ml cold whole milk or oat milk
• About 200 g ice cubes
• 100 ml double cream, chilled
• 1 tbsp icing sugar
• 2 speculoos biscuits, crushed

Method

1. Make the syrup. Put the cookie butter, hot water, brown sugar, cinnamon and salt in a small saucepan over low heat and whisk until the spread has dissolved completely.
2. Simmer very gently for 1 to 2 minutes, whisking, until the liquid is smooth and slightly thickened. Do not boil hard, or the oils in the spread will separate.
3. Pour the syrup into a jar and leave it to cool for about 10 minutes.
4. Whip the cream with the icing sugar in a bowl until it forms soft peaks that hold a trail. Chill until needed.
5. Fill two tall glasses with ice. Spoon 3 tbsp of syrup into each and pour over 150 ml of cold milk, stirring once so the syrup loosens.
6. Slowly pour 60 ml of cooled coffee or 2 espresso shots over the back of a spoon into each glass so that it sits on top as a second layer.
7. Spoon the whipped cream on top, scatter with the crushed biscuits and serve at once with a wide straw.

Tips, swaps and storage

Shake the jar of syrup before every use, since cookie butter contains oil and will settle. It keeps for 5 days in the fridge. For a hot latte, warm 175 ml of milk, froth it, stir in 2 tbsp of syrup and pour over a double espresso.