How to make my Vanilla Café Breve Video

[RichardParticipant]

I just uploaded an instructional video on how to make my Vanilla Café Breve.  It’s a dessert coffee drink that everyone really likes.  I get requests for it all the time.  We were talking about how many of us really like coffee in the chat yesterday.  I like to experiment and this is one of my more successful ones.  It’s not a traditional coffee drink, but if you want something different give it a try.  You can do the same thing with chocolate syrup.  I prefer Tarani chocolate sauce.  What makes these so smooth is you blend the syrup or chocolate sauce by steaming them together with the half and half.  If you want something with less fat you can use low fat milk.

[starfielderParticipant]

Ok, send us all one please. Thanks.

[RichardParticipant]

@starfielder Ok, send us all one please. Thanks.

I can’t guarantee that it will still be coffee by the time it gets to you.  

[starfielderParticipant]

I have a saecco machine that is fabulous…. your machine looks pretty swanky @Richard. I use Torani syrup as well. Lately vanilla has my vote. When I taught my kids how to use the machine and make my coffee….. I knew I was going to have a great life! Every morning it’s a cappuccino.

[RichardParticipant]

@starfielder Those Saeco fully automatic machines get good reviews.  My son is a barista in San Francisco and he got me interested in the hands on aspect of getting different flavors out of the coffee.  I have the Breville double boiler semi-automatic.  It takes care of the pre-infusion and the pull time.  I can do it manually with it if I want to as well.  It’s a mid priced machine.  I consider Breville the Apple of the appliance world.  I like all the engineering details they have in them.

I’ve really had fun trying different coffees from around the world and figuring out how different tamps, temperatures, and pull times can change the flavor.  Sometimes I like complicated.

[HeleneParticipant]

Love this precision coffee making. Go the milk foam art at the end.  And loved the size of the cup – perfect !

[Anonymous]

Wow love your coffee system Richard.  We have an espresso maker not nearly as fancy, a regular coffee maker and a Cusinart Burr Grinder.  I cheat on the heating the milk by merely nuking the milk in the microwave.  We also have a Bodum Coffee Press but haven’t used it in a while. When we are in our RV,  we use a stove top Bialetti espresso maker.  After we upgraded our stove at home, we found out the stove top espresso maker does not work on a ceramic top stove.

Here is a link to a book coffee lovers may like with all kinds of recipes.  http://www.ilovecoffeebook.com/index.html

Richard, if your current job doesn’t work out, you have a bright future as a Starbucks barista

[Anonymous]

Now I finally understand why Starbucks coffee takes time to make and is so expensive!

[RichardParticipant]

One of the least expensive ways to get 99% of the taste of an fancy expresso machine Americano is to use the Aerobie Aeropress.  It makes one cup of coffee really fast and really easy.  Here is a great video that explains it.

[WadeParticipant]

 

I know Starbucks gets dissed so much but I actually like them. They do drip coffee as well as espresso, are very consistent and the service is fantastic.

That said, when I remember, I actually prefer their VIA sachets. This is StarBucks re-inventing instant coffee.

Wade.

 

[Anonymous]

I like the Starbucks Via’s too @Wade.  Via’s are  also very handy to use in the RV.  I wrote a post on my Painlessly Delicious blog about 5 Things to Do with Instant Coffee:

 

http://chronicinthekitchen.com/2013/03/13/five-things-to-do-with-instant-coffee-you-may-not-have-thought-of/

[Author]

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