How Do You Make a Peanut Butter Latte at Home?

Peanut butter coffee works, and peanut lattes already appear on many cafe menus. The base is peanut butter rather than whole peanuts, mixed with a sweet element such as honey, condensed milk or syrup to soften its savory, oily edge. The drink can be built hot or iced, with the peanut butter blended into milk or espresso before assembly.

Bean choice matters. Brazil Cerrado, a medium-dark Red Bourbon with creamy peanut notes, balanced body and low acidity, suits the drink and extracts well as espresso on a machine or in a moka pot. Mixing the peanut butter with milk first helps keep the milk foam intact and the peanut flavor clear.

Can peanut butter be paired with coffee? Of course it can, and peanut lattes have long appeared on many coffee menus. Today, Front Street Coffee will talk about this unique flavored coffee: from ingredient selection and the ratio of peanut butter to condensed milk, to two different approaches for iced and hot drinks, we'll break it down step by step. The article will also share a key tip—whether peanut butter should be mixed with milk or espresso to preserve the milk foam while keeping the peanut flavor intact. Coffee lovers who enjoy trying new things might want to follow along and give it a try.

One morning at Front Street, while peeling peanuts and eating them, a thought popped up: could this savory little thing also go into coffee? And if so, how would you do it?

No sooner thought than tried, so we immediately searched online and found that adding peanuts to coffee had been done long ago. Many coffee shops have peanut lattes on their menus, with all sorts of variations. So today let's seriously study this somewhat special flavored coffee.

Ingredient Preparation

Judging from recipes shared online, to bring that rich peanut aroma into coffee, the first step actually uses peanut butter—the kind you spread on bread—rather than whole peanuts. So strictly speaking, peanut latte should really be called "peanut butter latte." Peanut butter itself has a nutty flavor that blends salty and sweet, with a light texture and a smooth, creamy mouthfeel. Whether for cold or hot drinks, it pairs well with milk coffee.

However, peanut butter's flavor is mainly savory and its oil content is high. If you simply mix it roughly into a latte, it may taste jarring and make you not want to continue after a few sips. So Front Street looked for some sweet ingredients, such as honey, condensed milk, and syrup, which can add layers to the coffee and also somewhat tone down the "sauce" taste.

Another key player is the coffee beans. To make the coffee's own nutty notes more prominent, Front Street first thought of Brazil Cerrado, which naturally has creamy peanut flavors. This bean is a medium-dark roasted Red Bourbon, semi-washed, with a balanced body, low acidity, and moderate strength. As espresso, it has good crema and is suitable for moka pot or espresso machine extraction, so it often appears in Front Street's espresso blends.

Iced Peanut Latte

Step one: prepare a transparent coffee cup, scoop a spoonful of peanut butter, and spread it evenly along the inside of the cup.

Then add 100 grams of ice cubes and 180 grams of milk to the cup and set aside.

Step two: take 20 grams of peanut butter and 12 grams of condensed milk and put them into a clean container with a wide opening. It's best to choose peanut butter with good fluidity (Front Street does not recommend solid peanut butter), because this way it can blend more quickly with the other ingredients when stirring.

Step three: use Brazil Cerrado to extract two shots of espresso. Set the shop's espresso grinder to 2.0, use 20 grams of grounds at a 1:2 ratio, and extract 40 grams of coffee liquid in 31 seconds.

Step four: pour all the espresso into the mixed sauce and stir with an electric frother until the foam becomes fine and dense and the three ingredients are fully combined.

Final step: pour the combined peanut butter coffee liquid over the iced milk, and a cup of rich, aromatic iced peanut latte is ready.

Stir gently and you can already smell a light peanut aroma. Take a sip with a straw, and the flavors of creamy peanut, milk chocolate, and caramel biscuit appear one after another, with a dense and smooth mouthfeel. The ice cubes give the rich nutty aroma a touch of milkiness without making it feel too sweet or cloying. Overall, it performs quite well.

Hot Peanut Butter Latte

The method for a hot peanut latte is actually similar to an ordinary hot milk coffee. What needs the most thought is: without affecting integration (latte art) and taste, how much of each sauce (peanut butter, condensed milk...) to add, where to put it, and when to add it.

Unlike the refreshing quality of iced coffee, hot drinks tend to amplify the ingredients' own flavors, and after adding milk they can also bring out characteristics similar to salty cheese. So if you don't want the "sauce" flavor to steal the show, it's best to reduce the amount appropriately. Here at Front Street, we reduce the peanut butter to 12 grams and use 6 grams of condensed milk.

On the first attempt, Front Street thought it could use the vortex and high temperature formed when steaming milk to "melt" the peanut butter and condensed milk, so we squeezed them into the milk in advance and steamed them together, but the result was not ideal. There were two main reasons: first, peanut butter does not dissolve easily in milk, making it hard to create silky milk foam, and the latte art pattern was also unstable; second, peanut butter makes the milk "cloudy," and the darker color is unfavorable for making patterns, with no advantage in taste either.

So on the second attempt, Front Street changed approach: let the peanut butter come into contact with the espresso first, while the condensed milk went into the milk. This solved the problem of steaming milk foam and also allowed the peanut flavor to fully emerge in the coffee.

The finished hot peanut latte tasted much more balanced. The crema on top brings aromas of caramel and dark chocolate. On the palate there is a rich roasted peanut flavor, paired with sweet hot milk. The overall mouthfeel is dense and silky, like eating a peanut cocoa cookie.

Actually, besides the methods mentioned above by Front Street, everyone can also improvise according to their own preferences when making this peanut latte. For example, sprinkling some crushed nuts on the surface of the coffee can both improve its appearance and add layers of texture; you can also add a moderate amount of sea salt flavor, or replace the milk base with oat milk, etc.

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The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.