My Fave New Appliance: The Breville Milk Frother

Welcome to my new (website) addition: Naptime Lifestyle! Not only do I love to cook and feed my family, I also have other interests like gardening, reading, decorating, kids, design, and crafting. I added this column to be a place to talk about all of these things.  I also suspect I’ll have a lot of baby stuff to talk about this winter so I think this would be a great place for that topic too!

Today I am going to start off my column talking about one of my newest favorite kitchen gadgets, The Breville Electric Milk Frother. I usually shy away from crazy kitchen electronics but this is one I just had to have and I am so lucky Santa noticed it on my list. I am not really a big coffee drinker but I suspect that might change this winter. There were a few times in college I tried to sip coffee after dinner since it seemed like a great way to stay awake when cramming for finals. But it always gave me the shakes and upset my stomach. These undesirable side effects were enough to make me give up on it for a solid decade. Then, when my daughter was born, I decided to try coffee once again in the interest of staying awake during the day despite the sleepless nights of infancy. Every so often I would sip teeny tiny lattes in the afternoon and I generally found that the side effects weren’t as bad as I had remembered. In fact, as long as I limited my intake to one latte every few days, I found the milky coffee beverage to be a nice little pick-me-up in the mid-afternoon.

Since I’ve decided that lattes might become a more regular part of my repertoire this winter – now I need to stay awake at night with TWO kids – I asked to find this milk frother under the tree. It is so incredibly user-friendly for coffee-making novices like me. It is also capable of making tons of great non-coffee drinks.  In just a few short weeks I’ve established it can froth cows milk, rice milk, and almond milk (I am sure it can froth soy as well), make a mean chai latte, and add the perfect foamy whipped topping to our favorite Peppermint Hot Chocolate.

The coolest thing about it is that there is no complicated heating wand/arm thingy like the kind baristas use at coffee shops. Instead you pour in the milk along with whatever tea or coffee you want (not coffee grounds, the actual coffee), and press start. The machine whirs away like crazy until the milk reaches the indicated desired temperature and a nice cap of foam has formed. It even has a cold stir feature which means I can use it for iced coffees in the summer. Though, we’ll see if I get that far in building up my coffee tolerance by then. Did I mention that the whole coffee-making ordeal ends when you rinse the jug and throw it in the dishwasher? Dishwasher safe = mom approved.

So now that I am all into my new lattes and afternoon chais I am beginning to wonder,  I crazy to be actively encouraging a small caffeine addiction for myself this winter? What are your favorite caffeinated drinks to make at home?