Homemade French Vanilla Creamer

Name: Homemade French Vanilla Creamer
Prep time: 5 min
Total time: 5 min
Ingredients: 14 oz. can of condensed milk; 2 1/2 cups milk; 1 T - 1 1/2 T vanilla

May 10, 2011 by Alea Milham 27 Comments

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This quick and easy French Vanilla Coffee Creamer recipe can be made at home with only 3 ingredients. Even better? It only takes 2 minutes! Keep reading if you want to know why we drink lots of coffee with French Vanilla Creamer.

Instead of telling you about Mother’s Day, I thought I would tell you about the day before Mother’s Day.

When raising our first batch of children my husband was very involved and often gave me a break so I could have “sanity time”. My children quickly established the connection between my need for sanity time and their behavior. One day after my two oldest children made a three-story spider web with yarn from my knitting basket, they greeted my husband at the door and said, “Mom really needs sanity time tonight”.

Fast forward to our last child who was born 14 years later. My husband has a demanding job and is a reservist which takes up many weekends. When he is not working at either of his jobs, he is playing with the kids, helping with homework, maintaining our vehicles, or our property. The only “me time” he takes is to go to the gym and he usually does that at 5:30 in the morning when the rest of us are asleep. So I only leave him with my youngest child when I absolutely have to. Which is why my husband had never spent an entire day caring for our youngest child on his own until last Saturday.

I often refer to my youngest son as my husband’s clone. He is intelligent, creative, and very energetic – wonderful qualities in a husband, exhausting qualities in a 4-year-old. I occasionally call my husband and share stories from my day which he, from the comfort of his office, finds amusing. When I called and told him about my son writing math equations in permanent marker on the closet door, he laughed and asked if they were correct. I told him they were and my husband’s laughter brought me the relief I needed to get through the rest of the day.

On Saturday, I set out to visit one of our horses who has been sent to a training farm for instruction. I only intended to be away for a few hours, but one thing led to another and I ended up being out for 7 hours. Here are the highlights from the day:

11:30 I called my husband and he told me Andrew was bouncing off the walls so he was taking him to the park.

12:30 I called my husband and heard Andrew screaming in the background. My husband said he was “never taking Andrew in public again”. I suggested Andrew’s mood would improve with food.

1:30 I called to let my husband know I was going to be delayed further. He said, “Food is overrated all it did was give Andrew more energy and he is back to bouncing off the walls”.

2:30 I called my husband to check on him and he said, “I completely understand how a mother could get addicted to crystal meth. This is exhausting”.

3:30 My husband called me and said, “Don’t come home without caffeine, lots of it”.

4:30 I walked in the door with a bag of coffee to a very grateful husband.

I didn’t realize until that moment how long it had been since my husband spent an entire day caring for a young child on his own. I feel really bad about taking pleasure from his pain, but his renewed appreciation for what I do every day was the best Mother’s Day present.

Why Make Homemade Creamer?

Last summer I added up the cost of my husband’s daily drive-through coffees. We were both shocked by the monthly total! I offered to make him coffee at home since it would save both time and money and he reluctantly agreed to give it a try.

At first, I bought pre-made French vanilla creamer from the dairy section at my grocery store to supplement my home-brewed coffee. Then I read the ingredient list on the creamer…

My husband asks for his coffee “with maximum pollutants” which after I read the label on some of the store-bought creamers seemed like an appropriate description. In an effort to reduce the “pollutants,” I created this creamer recipe for my husband’s coffee.

Since I started making my own creamer, my husband stopped buying coffee at coffee houses which saves us at least $25 a week.

Prep-Ahead Coffee

The easiest way to ensure you make coffee at home is to make a plan fr how you will make your coffee and have everything you need. Our coffee maker has a delayed brew setting, so I add the water and coffee the night before and program the coffee maker to start brewing when my husband’s alarm goes off. My husband hits snooze. Several times. By the time we actually get out of bed the coffee is ready.

We bought two stainless steel travel mugs: one for the road and one somewhere in the process of being washed and dried. I set a clean travel mug beside the coffee maker the night before.

I make the creamer ahead of time. The creamer can be kept in the refrigerator until the expiration date of the milk you used to make it. So all we have to do is reach into the fridge and grab the creamer. If you have it in a lidded container, give it a shake. If not, stir it. Then add it to the travel mug of coffee.

By prepping the coffee the night before, it takes only a minute to fill a travel mug with coffee and creamer in the morning. This is a lot faster than stopping at a coffee shop on the way to work!

French Vanilla Coffee Creamer Recipe

Ingredients:

14 oz. can of condensed milk
2 1/2 cups milk
1 T – 1 1/2 T vanilla

Directions:

1. Pour the can of condensed milk into a pitcher.

2. Add the milk to the pitcher. Stir to combine or put the lid on the container and shake well.

3. Add vanilla to taste. Stir well to mix.

Store any unused creamer in the refrigerator.

My daughter adds this creamer to her Chai tea and both of my teenagers add a splash to their hot cocoa.

What this video to see how easy it is to make Homemade Creamer:

Printable Recipe for French Vanilla Creamer

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