Recipe | Almond Flavored Simple Syrup

I love coffee. I really, really, really, really, REALLY love coffee. It's hard to believe that 2 years ago I was trying to force myself to enjoy it. My freshman year of college introduced me to the unfamiliar world of all-nighters. So naturally, the procrastinator in me wanted to be able to stay up reeeeeally late (or all night, some nights) to do schoolwork without chugging those nasty energy drinks.

When I'm out and about and want to grab a coffee at Starbucks or Dunkin', I usually get some sort of flavored syrup in it along with soy or fat free milk. The thing that skeeves me out about the flavored syrups, though, is that I don't know what's in them. That, and the fact that I don't have them available for when I make coffee at home, is what drove me to come up with my own recipe. Yes, you can buy the Starbucks syrups online, but who has the time to wait for that to ship and who wants to waste 10 bucks on it? Not THIS coffee addict. If you're as dedicated to making delicious coffee for yourself every morning as I am, here's what you'll need:

1 1/2 cups of water
2 cups of granulated sugar (I used cane sugar)
2 tbsp Almond Extract.

This recipe is so painfully simple, it's almost a sin that I've been paying an extra 50 cents or so for syrups in my coffee all this time (don't get me started on Starbucks' new gold card member rewards. I am NOT a happy camper about them).

Anyway, add the water to a pot and bring to a boil. Add the sugar to the boiling water, reduce the heat to low, and stir to dissolve. Remove the simple syrup from the heat and add the almond extract. Stir to make sure it's dispersed throughout the whole syrup. Add to your coffee and enjoy!

I keep my syrup in a small mason jar in the fridge and just add a few spoonfuls to my coffee with some unsweetened almond milk. I should note that this recipe makes for a VERY sweet simple syrup because it's 1.5 parts water to 2 parts sugar while a normal simple syrups usually calls for equal parts water to sugar. If you don't like your coffee terribly sweet but with more of an almond flavor, maybe bring the measurements down to 1:1 parts sugar to water and up the almond extract to 2 tbsp. Tweek it to whatever your taste calls for! And try this with any extract you like! I plan on doing this with coconut, vanilla, and maybe even some orange extract. If I can get my hands on some hazelnut extract I'll DEFINITELY be doing that too.