VeganMOFO: Misadventures in Homemade Soy Creamer

So, I've been on a quest to make homemade soy creamer for my coffee. I make my own soy milk each week, and I don't tend to flavor it all all (mostly because I never drink it straight, it usually just goes in something I'm cooking or baking.) But I do like a little cream in my coffee sometimes and the plain soymilk tends to be a bit thin and not very cream-like. Especially when you compare it to the store-bought creamers, like from Trader Joe's. That is where some homemade soy creamer ideas started to dance around in my head. There aren't too many recipes out there on the interweb for homemade vegan  creamers, but one did stand out.  I was really excited when I made this one, because hello, foam!  The first batch I made, straight from the recipe, I loved the foam, but the taste was too strong from the vanilla extract.  Second time I made it, I left the extract out, but my oil/soymilk kept separating in the fridge and in my coffee, so that was no good. And the taste still wasn't quite right.

Plan Two was to try and make a sweetened condensed soymilk. I was a little bit over-ambitious with this one, and got it in my head that it also needed to be pumpkin-flavored, because HELLO PUMPKIN-SEASON! No photo of this, but it was waaaaaaaaay too sweet to ever put in my precious coffee. It was a delicious syrup though that I'm sure you could add over pancakes or something. (I added 1/4 cup of canned pumpkin to the recipe.) 

Plan Three was the most obvious and simplest of the bunch. I just took 2 cups of the soymilk, put it in a pan, and boiled it down so there was only 1 cup left. Simple and delicious. I just add a little bit of sugar to my coffe and some of the thickened soymilk and call it a day. It's still not as thick as the store-bought creamer, but it works well and I like that I can control the sweetness level. I might experiment a bit further with almond milk and maybe even reducing it more. (no photo because it looks like a normal cup of coffee, mmmm...)