With a hint of French Vanilla

On a recent excursion to Hubble & Hudson, a local gourmet food retailer, cooking school and restaurant extraordinaire, I came across wonderful French simple syrup. For the past few months, I’ve been craving Vanilla Steamer beverages and my mission was to simplify the "make it from scratch" process.



I’ve been locally searching for vanilla bean simple syrup, so when I came across the Epicerie De Provence Vanille Sirop I was absolutely elated. Tonight, my husband and I enjoyed an aromatic cup of steamed milk enhanced with a vanilla bean infused vanilla simple syrup. Each drink was topped with whipped heavy cream with a dash of vanilla extract (This was left over from the blueberry crumbles I made last night.)


The recipe is quite simple:
1 cup of milk
1 tbls of Epicerie De Provence Vanille Sirop (or Vanilla Bean Simple Syrup)
Whipped Cream to garnish (optional)


Directions:
Pour milk in a microwave safe mug
Microwave milk for 45 seconds.  Remove from microwave
Add vanilla syrup and froth with a handheld frother
Return to microwave for another minute and frother one last time

With Whipped Cream

Upon frothing the heated beverage, you can see flecks of the vanilla bean. The best part of it all was no additional sweeter was required as the syrup was all encompassing. Although the price point of this delicacy can be a little steep at $12 to $16 per bottle, it is absolutely worth it!

Milk Frothing Made Easy

Just added the Breville Electric Milk Frother to my birthday and holiday wish list.  This little stainless steel beauty stirs and froths milk while using induction heating. Dishwasher-safe and easy to clean, the Breville Frother eliminates the need to use a double-boiler or microwave to heat milk for hot chocolate creations or Vanilla Steamers.  Exclusive to Williams-Sonoma.com, the frother retails for $160.00.

Lego Hot Chocolate Mixer

Gotta love it! This is taking hot chocolate frothing to a whole other level. Look at this Lego creation!

"Lego Hot Chocolate Mixer"

My 1st Frothing Experience

My husband is on a business trip and I have complete access to HIS coffee/cappuccino/espresso machine. Inspired by my Boston trip, I was determined to figure out how to use the frothing machine on his Krups. Initially, I thought…this shouldn’t be too hard? The bottom line, I ended up breaking out with the instructions on how to use that bad boy.

Since Frank drank up all the Milk before he left (which is like sacrilegious in our house), I had to use a small pint of whipping cream and a little water. I wasn’t in a heavy hot chocolate mood, but I needed my fix. Ta-dah. I am a frothing fool now!!!

The mix of the day is Colombian 53 Single Origin Drinking Chocolate by Allergo Coffee. I found this selection in Whole Foods a little while back. Since this is a single origin drinking chocolate, all of the cacao beans come from the same region. Many chocolate and hot chocolate manufacturers use beans from all over with different quality levels to make their final creations. Most of the time, the end result isn’t very good since the three to four types of cacao beans each have a different level of roasting and/or conching that needs to be done to achieve optimum flavor.

Now, Allergo uses 53% Colombian dark chocolate (sugar, cocoa mass, cocoa butter, soy lecithin, vanilla), Colombian cocoa powder, cane sugar. I pour my frothy milk into my ducky mug my sister Pam got me for Easter and added the Colombian 53 to the mix. Forget Calgon taking me away….it was Colombian 53 for me!