Caffe Latte is one of the most popular espresso based coffee drinks sold in cafes and espresso bars. Ever wondered how to make a cafe quality caffe latte at home? With a quality espresso machine and some good technique it is easy to achieve cafe quality caffe latte at home.
Here are the 5 key secrets to achieving perfect steamed milk on your homes espresso machine:
1)
??
2) Use fresh whole milk
For a well made caffe latte you need to use fresh whole milk (fat content 3.3-4.0%, protein 3.2%-3.3%). Both the fat and protein content are critical to developing, stabilising, and supporting the thick velvety texture created by the milk microfoam; using trim milk will make it more difficult to achieve a nice velvet microfoam and the texture will be lacking in body.
3) Use fresh cold milk, do not reheat steamed milk
All good cafes use whole milk for cafe lattes so you should too.
3) Select the appropriate sized milk jug and use only enough milk
Your milk pitcher should be approximately half full with fresh whole milk before steaming; decades of preparation of steamed milk all over the world has this allows sufficient volume to stretch the milk and inject texture without the jug overflowing while at the same time providing enough volume of milk
If you are just making one caffe latte for yourself, use a 300ml stainless jug; if you are making two caffe lattes for yourself and a friend, use a 600ml stainless jug.
4) Dont overheat the milk or expand it too much
Caffe latte relies on milk with a velvety texture to carry the espresso and to delivery the right feel in the mouth. Expanding the milk too much will create too much fluffy foam, overheating the milk will cause the texture and body of the milk to break down.
5) Purge your steam wand
Regardless of whether you are using a $3000+ home commercial machine or a sub $1000 single boiler unit it is a very good practice to purge your se
6) Use two hands
??
7) ??
??