My method for cafe au lait
One of my favorite breakfast cups is the cafe au lait. It's a very simple thing to make with just coffee and heated milk. My method is a bit more detailed.
This method calls for using an aeropress, which is not to be confused with a French press. You could certainly do it the traditional way with an actual French press or any other brewed coffee or even espresso, but for my tastes the aeropress provides the best results. I'll provide detailed instructions on how to use the aeropress at the end should anyone who doesn't already have one decide to try it.
Measure 14g (roughly 1.5 scoops) of ground coffee and place into the aeropress after the filter has been installed.
Heat some water in a kettle to 200F.
Measure 3oz of whole milk into a coffee cup or mug suitable for use with the aeropress. I like to use a heavy ceramic mug at least 8oz. Microwave for about 30 seconds or until the temperature reaches 130-140F or so. Much more than 160F and the milk will start to scald which you don't want. The end result will be quite hot, so if you want a cooler serving temp don't heat the milk as much.
Using the inside of the aeropress plunger, add the hot water until just to the top of the #2 circle (~3.5 oz). Place the aeropress on the cup, add water, stir, and start to plunge slowly 30 seconds after stirring.
Give it a quick stir and voila, cafe au lait, cafe con leche, or just coffee with milk. With practice it's faster and about as easy as a coffee maker.
So maybe some of you already have an aeropress as they are quite popular, but if you don't and like making single servings of coffee, you should consider getting one. They are about $30 delivered and has the potential to make an incredibly nice cup of coffee. They are as simple to use as you want or there's all sorts of tips and tricks on the youtubes for using one. They are also incredibly easy to clean. Just plunge out the grinds with the filter and rinse with hot water. Run it through the dishwasher occassionally.
The aeropress is designed to make a highly concentrated cup of coffee by brewing relatively quickly using a high ratio of hot water to coffee pressed under pressure using a syringe type of device filtered through a small paper (or optionally metal) filter. While the billing of the device is an "espresso maker" it's definitely not an espresso maker, although some of the attributes are similar. So you might be thinking, I don't like very strong coffee. This is actually no problem at all because the idea is to add hot water to get the strength you want, or in this case hot milk. For this reason I think it's incredibly well suited for cafe au lait. The advantage of using a high water to coffee ratio and a quick brew time is the coffee tends to be less bitter than traditionally brewed coffee.
The aeropress works just fine with pre-ground coffee, but works even better with a burr coffee grinder and some freshly roasted beans. The finer the grind, the harder it is to plunge the aeropress. What I find works best is you adjust your grind to the point at which the aeropress becomes quite hard to plunge, and then back it off a bit until it offers resistance, but is not too hard. 14 grams of coffee is what I use pretty much all the time.
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