Starbucks Cherry Powder Recipe

Starbucks' cherry powder is the sweet pink powder that flavoured its cherry cream cold foam in spring 2025; Starbucks has not published what is in it. This stand-in grinds one cup of freeze-dried cherries with a quarter cup of sugar and a pinch of salt into about half a cup of powder, enough for twelve foams or twelve glasses of cherry lemonade.

What is known about Starbucks' cherry powder

Starbucks put its cherry cream cold foam on the menu on 4 March 2025 with the Iced Cherry Chai, for a limited time. Its announcement names the foam and a cherry crunch topping, and does not say what flavours them.

The powder is known from the coverage that followed. Elite Daily describes an off-menu cherry lemonade made with two scoops of cherry powder, which turns the drink pink, and Tasting Table notes that the powder is dairy-free. No ingredient list has been published. The recipe here is a stand-in, not Starbucks' formula, and MakeFoodLovely is not connected with Starbucks.

Recipe

Cherry Powder

A stand-in for the cherry powder in Starbucks' cherry cream cold foam — freeze-dried cherries ground with sugar and a pinch of salt. About half a cup.

5.0 (1)Print

Prep

5 min

Total

5 min

Serves

12

Cuisine

American

Ingredients

• 1 cup freeze-dried cherries (about 1 ounce)
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon salt

Instructions

1. Grind the freeze-dried cherries in a dry blender or spice grinder for 30 to 60 seconds, until they are a fine powder. Wait a few seconds before opening the lid so the dust settles.
2. Add the sugar and the salt and grind for another 30 seconds. The sugar scours the cherry powder off the walls of the jar and is ground finer itself, so it dissolves faster in cold cream.
3. Shake the powder through a fine sieve to catch bits of skin. Grind what stays behind once more, or discard it.
4. Store the powder in a small airtight jar.

Nutrition

Calories:

25

Calculated from the ingredient quantities above using the USDA FoodData Central database, then divided by the number of servings. It is an estimate and will vary with the exact products you use.

Cherry powder for cold foam

For two drinks, froth 1/4 cup of cold heavy cream with 2 tablespoons of cold milk, 2 teaspoons of the cherry powder and 1 tablespoon of vanilla syrup for about 30 seconds, until it pours thick. The powder goes in before frothing; added afterwards it sits on the foam in specks.

The method, and what the foam goes on, is in the cherry cold foam recipe, along with a rebuilt Iced Cherry Chai.

Freeze-dried cherries, not dried ones

Freeze-dried cherries are brittle and grind to dust in seconds. Ordinary dried cherries are leathery and still hold water; in a grinder they turn into a paste that never becomes a powder.

• Tart or sweet: either works. Tart cherries give a sharper powder; add a tablespoon more sugar if it is too sharp.
• A dry grinder: a drop of water in the jar is enough to make the powder clump.
• Other fruit: freeze-dried strawberries or raspberries grind the same way, in the same amounts.

Other uses for cherry powder

• Cherry lemonade: stir 2 teaspoons into a cup of cold lemonade. The dragonfruit lemonade on this site is another pink one.
• Iced chai or iced matcha: 1 teaspoon stirred into the milk before it goes over the ice.
• Frosting and whipped cream: 1 tablespoon per cup colours and flavours it without adding liquid.

It is the cherry counterpart of the lavender powder and goes into foam the same way as the syrup in the strawberry cold foam.

Keeping the powder dry

Freeze-dried fruit pulls moisture out of the air, and the powder cakes within days in a jar that is opened often. Keep it airtight in a cool cupboard, and regrind it if it has clumped. The colour fades with time and light, so make no more than a month's worth.