Directions
Those who follow a vegan diet or are lactose intolerant usually have breakfast with vegetable drinks based on cereals (oats, barley), dried fruit (walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts) or legumes (soy). But is it possible to enjoy the creaminess of a good frothed cappuccino even using a vegetable drink?
Of course yes, and soy milk is not the only drink that allows you to prepare a nice cappuccino full of foam. Today we are going to show you 5 tricks for frothing the almond-based vegetable drink and get a cappuccino as good as the one at the bar.
Choose the right milk
Before starting, it is necessary to specify one thing: almond milk obviously does not have the same chemical structure and the same amount of protein as cow’s milk, and therefore it does not have the ability to froth typical of cow’s milk.
To overcome this problem, many companies that produce almond drinks sell a version specially designed to be whipped and used in the preparation of cappuccino: the difference lies in the protein content of the drink, which is modified in the laboratory to improve the characteristics of frothing almond milk.
Wording such as “barista” or “for cappuccino” can be read on the packaging of the drink. Let’s make sure we’ve bought the right almond milk before we start preparing our vegan cappuccino.
Pay attention to the temperature
The temperature of our almond milk plays a fundamental role in the success of the frothing process: a milk that is too cold will not produce a satisfactory amount of foam; on the contrary, milk that is too hot will give rise to a too “cheesy” consistency.
But what is the ideal temperature to take the milk to to froth it? According to experts, it is between 68°C and 74°C. To check if the temperature is right, we should use a food thermometer.
Use the right tools
Now that we have bought the right milk and brought it up to temperature, we just have to proceed with the actual frothing. To achieve this we can use different tools:
Manual whisk
If we don’t have any tools specifically designed for preparing cappuccino at home, we use a normal whisk for sweets – the smallest we have. It will take a few minutes and a good dose of elbow grease before you start to see micro-air bubbles appearing on the surface of the liquid. At this point, we tilt the cup towards us and keep whisking vigorously until we get the desired result.
Electric whisk
We can speed up the foaming process by using an electric whisk: the procedure is the same, but we will save some effort because the appliance will do the work for us.
French Press
Finally, there is a specific accessory for making cappuccino, called the French Press. In practice, it is a cylinder into which the milk to be whipped is poured, equipped with a piston that goes up and down: this movement allows the milk to froth and create foam.
