How To Draw A Starbucks Unicorn Frappuccino

Unicorn Frappuccino Recipe

Starbucks

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The fabled unicorn frappuccino has gone the way of the dullard, all in the glimmer of an eye. Starbucks made the unicorn frappuccino available for just five days, and the vast majority of locations ran out of supplies way before that. Some people loved it, some hated information technology, but information technology certainly spread like wildfire and gave Starbucks a significant boost in sales.

The barista at the Starbucks I visited told me that her store–and every other shop in the area–ran out three days into the miracle. The kind adult female also explained how she could basically give me the same thing without the "unicorn" role. For a mere $3.70 (or $3.54 if your Starbucks is located in a national "big box" store with its own Red Card ... I forget the name) the nice barista served upwardly the base frappuccino and said the rest is in the special "unicorn" parts. A few friendly sentences after and before I knew it, I had the clandestine formula to the unicorn frappuccino.

Here'southward how it happened. (Total recipe is at the stop for the aggressive.)

Let'south go to cooking!

Jake Vigliotti/Mashed

Here'southward what you demand to make your own unicorn frappuccino: ice, vanilla ice cream, milk (any kind, but I'thou using whole milk considering skim milk is white water), mango syrup (or mango slices from a can), kokosnoot syrup (or pureed kokosnoot from a can), kokosnoot oil, and white chocolate (in whatsoever course that you can melt down).

That'south for the flavor. For the visual issue, I used sour blue flavoring, pink dry food coloring, powdered sugar, food coloring (neon blue and neon carmine), a blender of some sort, whipped cream, and a loving cup. You tin can also employ a Starbucks cup, which I've done here for added upshot. (Full ingredients list is at the stop with the recipe.)

What's a frappuccino?

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Before we brainstorm building a copycat unicorn frappuccino, nosotros need to define what exactly a frappuccino is. It's time to get real: this is a shake, and it may or may not contain coffee depending on what you order. The biggest divergence between a frappuccino and a milkshake is i is copyrighted and 1 isn't. People in New England are probably familiar with the frappe, and they volition tell yous direct upwards that a milkshake and a frappe are completely different. Milkshakes are thin, while frappes are thick(er). But in their soft centers, the difference lies only in nomenclature. This is a thick, cream-based common cold item loaded with sugary flavoring.

Basically, Starbucks threw some Italian-sounding words together, kinda like calling its 20-ounce drinks "venti" because it's Italian for 20. Regardless, when we're talking frappuccinos, think milkshake with more than flavoring offerings. And note that the unicorn frappuccino has no coffee in it.

The base of operations for a unicorn frappuccino–according to my friendly barista who revealed mode too much information–is a mango frappuccino. The remainder is merely sweetness and sour stuff. So for all intents and purposes, we're simply making a milkshake with a bunch of other stuff in information technology.

And at present information technology'south a unicorn?

The unicorn frappuccino is a crazy concoction with a teeth-shaking sweetness and so a punch of sour. The base is a mango frappuccino, which is bachelor on the Starbucks hugger-mugger carte du jour. Nevertheless, there's something that's a little off from the (standard but traditionally secret) mango frappuccino. The base for the unicorn frappuccino isn't mango-colored; it's white. Also, the mango frappuccino conspicuously has coconut in information technology. The official ingredients for the unicorn frappuccino spell it out. To my taste, at that place was a trivial more just coconut oil and kokosnoot butter used to create the blue drizzle. The two semi-difficult parts seem to be creating the sweet pink flavoring, and the sour blue flavoring. However, those are the easy parts. The hard part is actually making the frappuccino itself.

Let's get sour

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The sour part of the unicorn frappuccino is made from a white chocolate base. Without going through Starbucks' unabridged listing of chemical ingredients, we'll need the following nuts: white chocolate, saccharide, and something sour.

I asked my friendly barista if the sour base was just Fun Dip. Her response: "Exactly." Whether Starbucks literally bought a agglomeration of Fun Dip or whether it's but Fun Dip-like, there'south no demand to construct our own citric acid with blue flavoring when a few coins will get yous a pack of Fun Dip. Plus it comes with the dipping stick! Fun Dip is sour, merely it isn't super sour. I idea a Baby Bottle Popular might exist a good sour replacement, so I taste-tested it against some Fun Dip before using information technology in an early version of the unicorn frappuccino. Lick for lick, the Infant Bottle Pop was significantly more mouth-puckering. Merely after I made an entire unicorn frappuccino using a Babe Bottle Pop, information technology wasn't fifty-fifty remotely sour. The Fun Dip has the sour staying power, so that's what we're using hither.

Starbucks calls its sugar "classic syrup." This is just a simple syrup with citric acid, and information technology helps make things sour. We're already using Fun Dip, and then let'south add a fiddling to our simple syrup. Elementary syrup is a one:1 mix of water and saccharide, cooked down. Add together a scant ¼ cup carbohydrate to ¼ cup water. And then add in ½ teaspoon of Fun Dip. The key to making a unproblematic syrup is to bring this mixture up to a high temperature, then driblet the heat to a simmer simply equally you lot begin to become bubbles. Start stirring correct abroad to prevent crystallization. Simmer for 10 minutes and then let to cool. It doesn't demand to get all the style down to room temperature considering we're going to use information technology again quickly.

Make sour drizzle

Jake Vigliotti/Mashed

While that's cooling, nosotros'll construct the rest of the sour drizzle, which is really pretty unproblematic. The base of operations is white chocolate, and then that's half the battle. Before you put annihilation in your pot or double-boiler, add together just a bear upon of coconut oil. Ghirardelli white chocolate doesn't incorporate coconut oil, but it's somewhere in the Starbucks recipe. I dipped a silicone spatula into the coconut oil and spread information technology on the bottom of the double-banality bowl. (A pot should piece of work, besides, as long as you lot're careful with your oestrus.) It's subtle, but that's what the Starbucks ingredients point to.

And then add 5 ounces of evaporated milk, 10 ounces of condensed milk, and ⅓ cup of white chocolate. You can use wafers, chips, or bars. The merely thing that will change is how long information technology'll have to melt down.

Place over medium-low heat. Equally the chocolate begins to cook, pour in your simple syrup. You'll notice a blueish tinge to it and a slightly sour taste. That'southward what we're going for: just a touch of citric acid flavor to the syrup. The citric acrid acts mainly every bit a preservative, but it also cuts some of the sweet in the drizzle, which we will definitely need.

After the white chocolate sauce melts downward, movement half of information technology to a bowl and striking it with the balance of the open up pack of Fun Dip. You lot can even utilise a pack and a one-half for more sour flavor. We need some Fun Dip for the whipped foam topping afterward, so you'll be opening two packs either way. You lot can likewise add a little neon blue food coloring to give information technology a darker blueish tint, and you might endeavour adding some ruddy food coloring, too, although I did not. (More on that later.)

Motility your concoction to a squeeze bottle and refrigerate; the longer the improve. I ended upward with extra white chocolate sauce for multiple test runs, then I've reduced the portions in the recipe at the finish. Information technology'due south also doubles quite nicely as a dip for strawberries.

The bodily frappuccino

Jake Vigliotti/Mashed

There are ii different ways to make a unicorn frappuccino. There'due south the easy way, and at that place's the "I'm potent and independent" style. The easy manner is to head down to your nearest Starbucks, which is probably non too far abroad, and either order a mango frappuccino or tell them y'all desire the base for the unicorn frappuccino. Ask for an actress cup, and society it without whipped cream.

If you're really going to build it from scratch, you'll need to concoct the coloring base commencement. Making the unique coloring is the truthful secret. My kind barista told me exactly what gave the unicorn frappuccino that obnoxious shade: powdered carbohydrate and pink coloring. Take ¼ cup powdered sugar and add ½ teaspoon of dry out pink food coloring. Dry food coloring should be bachelor at the aforementioned type of store you found the white chocolate wafers.

Combine 1 cup ice cream, ½ cup ice, ii tablespoons mango syrup, and ½ teaspoon kokosnoot syrup in a blender with a ¼ cup milk, along with 2 tablespoons of that pinkish powdered sugar. Finding coconut syrup and mango syrup might exist difficult. Unless you desire to order alee from an online shop, don't experience likewise bad substituting the juice from a can of each.

Or if you don't have the mango syrup, take two mango slices and two tablespoons of the juice from the tin and liquefy that in the blender first, along with ¼ tablespoon of coconut from the tin. That'll give y'all the mango flavoring you need. Later on (a lot of) trial and error, I establish that this delivered the mango flavoring without overpowering the drink.

After everything is blended up, hit it with a drop of neon pink nutrient coloring to requite the pinkish more of a blast. Then I did one more twirl in the blender to spread that neon color effectually.

The build

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Subsequently your sour sauce has rested for thirty minutes to an hour in your fridge, drizzle information technology on the inside of your cup. If yous don't let information technology residuum, information technology volition just run down the sides. Cascade the drizzle within the cup, squirting it along the sides in a fancy up and down fashion or doing whatever other cocked thing you feel like. And then cascade in the pink frappuccino base and top information technology with whipped cream. Sprinkle half the whipped foam with some of the Fun Dip, and the other one-half with the pink coloring.

If you chose the like shooting fish in a barrel manner, just wearing apparel the inside of the clean cup with the drizzle, pour in the purchased mango frappuccino with some of the pinkish powdered saccharide, and top with whipped foam in the same style. Then don't tell a soul.

How close are we?

Jake Vigliotti/Mashed

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to try the real unicorn frappuccino myself before it was gone, but I found a friend who did. After she tried the bootleg version, she reported the sweet was expressionless on–the powdered sugar made all the difference. In a "dry" taste test, pitting the base sans "pinkish" sweet flavor confronting a mango frappuccino, the two were nearly identical. The sour was a trivial off; it wasn't sour enough. Information technology would probably be best to go with a pack and a one-half of Fun Dip, or find some other sour blueish flavoring with a bit more dial. After some trial and a lot of error, I also constitute that letting the sour drizzle stay in the fridge longer helped it grip the sides of the cup much better.

Just permit's address the elephant in this kitchen: the coloring is off. I concluded with a bit of an orange-green version, while the real unicorn frappuccino is more of a blue-majestic. It's possible that a little red food dye and extra blue food dye might fix this issue. (That'due south assuming it needs fixing; who'south to say in that location weren't orangish-greenish unicorns in history?)

My taster said this copycat unicorn frappuccino didn't quite nail the crazy sweet of the original, but she did say it was more drinkable considering of that fact. The sour helps balance it out a tad, but it's not an everyday treat either way. Sometimes, you're amend off not exactly nailing the flavour.

Unicorn Frappuccino Recipe

Want to make your ain Starbucks unicorn frappuccino? Hither's the copycat recipe.

Scant ¼ loving cup sugar
¼ cup water
two packs bluish Fun Dip
¼ cup white chocolate chips
one tablespoon coconut oil
two ounces condensed milk
four ounces evaporated milk
Neon blue food dye
Neon red food dye (suggested)
2 mango slices
i tablespoon mango juice (or two tablespoons mango syrup)
½ tablespoon kokosnoot puree (or one tablespoon kokosnoot syrup)
1 cup vanilla water ice cream
½ cup ice
¼ loving cup milk
2 tablespoons powdered sugar
½ teaspoon dry pink food coloring
Neon pink or regal food dye
Directions

To make sour drizzle, combine sugar with h2o and ½ teaspoon Fun Dip in a small pan. Place over high heat until mixture but starts to bubble, and then lower heat and simmer, stirring regularly to prevent crystallization, for nigh 10 minutes. Remove from heat and allow syrup to cool slightly.
In a pot or double boiler over medium-low heat, combine white chocolate, coconut oil, condensed milk, and evaporated milk.
As the white chocolate begins to melt, pour in the syrup. Stir to combine, then remove from heat. Add ane to ane½ packs blue Fun Dip. Add bluish and red nutrient colorings until color is satisfactory.
Pour into a squeeze bottle and refrigerate for 30 to 60 minutes.
Next, make the frappucino past blending 2 mango slices and mango juice until smooth. Add kokosnoot syrup and blend.
In a small bowl, combine powdered sugar and dry food coloring, mixing until the coloring is fully incorporated.
Add vanilla ice cream, ice, and milk to blender. Transfer powdered sugar mix to blender and blend all together.
Add neon food dye and blend until color is satisfactory.
To build the drinkable, drizzle the sour drizzle mix from the squeeze canteen around the inside of the cup, coating the sides.
Cascade in frappuccino mix.
Acme with whipped cream. Sprinkle the whipped cream with the blue sour mix and more dry out nutrient coloring.
Drink and relish!