London Fog - At Last!

Fall has officially arrived and with it...the rain.

Kitimat receives a lot of rain.  Our first two summers here were, apparently, exceptionally dry and sunny.  However, both autumns have brought with them clouds, fog, and lots and lots of rain.  And that's perfectly alright with us.


Don't get me wrong.  I love picture perfect, bright sunny autumn days.  Cape Breton is blessed with glorious autumns and at times I do miss the autumn colours and warm weather.  However, cold, grey, rainy days have their charm, too, and I've had plenty of opportunity to test this theory since our arrival on the West Coast.


One of my Fall rituals is to get our espresso / cappuccino maker out of storage and dig out my coffee drink recipes.  I received this espresso maker for Christmas a few years ago, and after a few rocky starts (seriously, I thought it was going to blow up!) I was whipping up lattes and mochas like a barista!  We use the machine all winter, but once the warm weather strikes we put it away.  This keeps our cold weather coffee drink ritual special (and it makes room for our blender and yummy frozen drinks!).


Today was another drizzly, rainy day, so this afternoon I thought it would be the perfect day to take out the espresso maker for another season.  I'd been wanting to try a London Fog, and since our fog would give London's a run for it's money, it seemed like a great recipe to try.  I dug the machine out from its cupboard, wiped it down, and prepared to run a cycle of water through to clean it out.

  Last year I'd had to give it an extra thorough cleaning in order to get the steam nozzle to work, but after some coaxing it started frothing again and we enjoyed another winter's worth of coffee drinks.  As I ran the cycle of water through (to clean it out) I realized that it was going to do the same thing again this year.  Long story short, despite working on the machine for quite some time, it has run its course and I had to retire it today.

What to do?  I had found a great recipe for a London Fog at Brewed Daily and I really wanted to try it.  I'd even made the suggested homemade vanilla sauce (pictured at left). I remembered commenting on a blog last week that had posted on how to make lattes without a machine but for the life of me I couldn't remember which one (if you're reading this, please, remind me in the comments!) I consulted the recipe again; it said that you could heat the milk using a steam nozzle or in the microwave!

I was back in business!  I made the Earl Grey Tea and added vanilla sauce while the milk warmed in the microwave.  I took the milk out of the microwave and looked at it.  Without foam, it just didn't seem quite right.  Why oh why didn't I bookmark that blog post!?  Well, the recipe said that you could whisk the milk until it was frothy.  I got out my hand mixer (which has a tiny whisk attachment) and, very carefully, I frothed the milk with the whisk. Success!  I poured the milk into the tea and stood back to admire my freshly brewed London Fog Latte:

 
And yes, it tasted as good as it looked!