Caramel Apple Spiced Cider with Salted Caramel Sauce

Copycat Starbucks Caramel Apple Spice! Here’s a fun fact: Even though we aren’t coffee drinkers, one of my daughters spent her senior year of high school working as a barista at Starbucks. Some nights she would even come home and make us all this amazing drink…warm spiced cider, topped with cool whipping cream, and a drizzle of salted caramel. What’s not to love?!

Here’s fun fact #2: You can actually buy the Starbucks syrups at their counters, which makes this less of a “copycat” recipe and more of the actual recipe! This drink uses their cinnamon dolce syrup (they even have a sugar free syrup option!)

And I’m 100% convinced that any warm apple drink (wassail or even just warmed cider) tastes even better when topped with whipping cream and salted caramel. Try it and you’ll see what I mean!

The Syrups

I still can’t quite wrap my brain around the fact that Starbucks sells their flavored syrups to the public, but I’m on board. Here are the two syrups I used in this recipe: Cinnamon Dolce for the cider and Vanilla for the whipping cream. That’s how they do it at Starbucks!

But as you can see the bottles are huge. Each 8 ounce drink only uses 2 teaspoons (or 2 pumps) of cinnamon dolce syrup, so you may want to buy the syrup with a friend and split it between you. And if I’m being totally honest, you might just opt to warm some plain cider and top with whipping cream and salted caramel sauce. The magic of this recipe is when the warm apple cider combines with the cool whipping cream and salted caramel sauce. The temperatures and flavors contrast perfectly!

Salted Caramel Sauce

One of the top recipes on my website is the Salted Caramel Sauce I posted last year. I’ve updated the recipe, with a few process photos to make it even easier to make. It’s the best I’ve ever had!