Last week, everyone went bonkers over the Unicorn Frappuccino at Starbucks. Most likely created with Instagram posts in mind (props to Starbuck’s marketing team), the drink is cute, fun, and a seemingly-awesome welcome drink for May.
Except that the second ingredient in the drink’s blue syrup is sugar, it’s made with an f*ton of dairy products (a good read on what dairy is actually made of), and there are weird chemicals in the drink (like carrageenan). The good news is that this cute drink is totally doable at home and you can replace all of these not-ideal ingredients with vegan, naturally-sweetened swaps!
The DIY syrup is made with a simple combo of spirulina and soy yogurt. Spirulina
The pink smoothie is made from a combo of bananas and dragon fruit (also know as pitaya). Pitaya has a vividly bright pink hue and tastes a little bit like a mix of cotton candy and bumble gum when added to a frozen banana smoothie. I found frozen pitaya at my local Publix, but if you can’t find the frozen fruit, you might be able to track down dried pitaya powder on Amazon. If you end up using powdered pitaya in the smoothie, throw in another frozen banana for more sustenance.
The frappe topping is a combo of coconut whipped cream sprinkled with freeze-dried blueberries and strawberries (which can both be found at Trader Joe’s). To make the cream, I get a can of coconut cream from TJ’s, open the top and refrigerate it (opened) overnight. Then, I’ll whip just the solid part with a tablespoon or two of maple syrup the next day. For a step by step on making coconut whipped cream, you can check out this video, at about 3 minutes and 20 seconds in. You can definitely leave this part out of the recipe, but it is pretty fun to have extra coconut whipped cream in the fridge. It works really well topping banana nice cream.
Alright, back to work now. Working on some new summer things for the WearBareBones shop. 🙂
- Smoothie:
- 2 frozen bananas
- 1 cup frozen pitaya (or a tbsp of pitaya powder)
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- a few drops of liquid stevia
- 3/4 cup unsweetened almond milk
- Syrup (optional):
- 3 tbsp non-dairy yogurt
- 1/4 tsp spirulina
- Toppings (optional):
- 2 tbsp coconut whipped cream
- freeze-dried strawberries
- freeze-dried blueberries
- Make the syrup. Combine yogurt with spirulina, mixing well. Swirl yogurt around glass (see video for technique). Place in freezer while making the smoothie.
- Make the smoothie. Add all smoothie ingredients to a high-speed blender, blend until completely pureed.
- Remove glass from freezer. Spoon in smoothie. Top with whipped cream and crushed strawberries and blueberries.
View comments
+ Leave a comment