Middle Eastern Iced Coffee with Homemade Cardamom Vanilla Syrup and Rosewater

Disclaimer: This post was sponsored by the J.M. Smucker company. All opinions and the yummy recipe are my own.

I wake up, go upstairs to feed the cats and then make my first iced coffee of the day. I almost always add vanilla nondairy milk and sometimes I add a homemade syrup or two to create a drink you can’t even get outside of my own kitchen.

Today, I have a new and exciting coffee drink for you – a Middle Eastern Iced Coffee. It’s inspired by a coffee on the menu at Cocoa and Cinnamon in my hometown, Durham, NC. They even have vegan snacks, so be sure to try it when you’re in town.

We’re going to make an easy syrup that’s infused with exotic cardamom and vanilla bean (recipe below near the bottom of this post). Then you’ll pour that sweet syrup into your homemade cold brew coffee with a splash of rosewater. You’ll add both the Homemade Cardamom Vanilla Syrup and rosewater to taste. If you don’t like it very sweet you can even double the amount of cardamom and vanilla when you make the syrup. That way you can get all the flavor with less syrup and sugar.

The most surprising part is that I don’t actually use nondairy milk or creamer in this one. But, of course, you can add it if you want to, it’s your coffee!

I love coffee flavor that’s bold, smooth and never bitter. That’s why I choose a delicious dark roast like Dunkin’ Dark® coffee. It’s so much cheaper to make your own cold brew coffee and ridiculously easy too. Just put some ground coffee in your French Press fill with cold water and let sit 12 to 24 hours. You can get the directions here.

I need the energy I get from my morning coffee to be bold in the kitchen. The view from reading a blog is often like seeing someone’s Facebook life. You see the recipes and final photos on the blog after they’re perfected. What you don’t see is how many times the recipe gets made or all the tweaks along the way.

Don’t get me wrong, my favorite thing to do is making up new recipes. But I didn’t always know how. I taught myself how to cook when I was 18. For me, it was all trial and error with a copy of The Moosewood Cookbook in my hands.

I can promise you all those early dinners were not amazing, but we ate them and I learned from cooking each one. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to start this blog and write cookbooks. I love to teach people the things I know and most of those I learned the hard way.

I believe that learning anything new takes courage and fearlessness. Cooking is no exception. The most important lesson I’ve learned in my life is that you can’t succeed at anything unless you’re willing to fail.

So go out and charge ahead. Your failures will teach you as much as your successes!

I’m very excited that Dunkin’ Donuts^® is now working with the Rainforest Alliance. The Rainforest Alliance works to conserve natural resources and protects wildlife and the environment. And that’s something we can all get behind.

Dunkin’ Donuts® is dedicated to helping the Rainforest Alliance reach over 160,000 coffee farmers and to safeguarding the health of more than 2.3 million acres of land. For more information, visit Dunkin’ Donuts®.

You should be able to find Dunkin’ Dark® coffee in your local grocery store or you can get it at dunkinathome.com online.

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Homemade Cardamom Vanilla Syrup

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Serves about 1½ to 2 cups     adjust servings

This is delicious in iced coffee, hot coffee, and even in tea and hot chocolate! You could use agave nectar or maple syrup in place of the sugar if you want.

Ingredients

• 30 whole green cardamom pods
• 1 cup vegan sugar
• 1 cup water
• 1 vanilla bean sliced in half

Instructions

1. Add all the ingredients into a small saucepan. Turn the heat to high and stir until the sugar starts to dissolve, then lower the heat to medium.
2. Keep cooking and stirring until the sugar is completely dissolved. Remove from heat and let cool with the cardamom pods and vanilla still in the pot.
3. Once cool, strain and store in the fridge.

by Kathy Hester

What are some of the bold things you’ve done? I’d love to hear all about it in the comments!

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