8 best milk frothers for barista-worthy drinks

For busy households, this ProCook milk frother is perfect. It has a capacity of 400ml, meaning it can make a couple of hot chocolates at once, without breaking a sweat. This is only on the hot-milk/hot-chocolate setting, though – ie, with no froth. Want some texture in your milk, and you’re down to a 200ml capacity.

There’s a hot frothy milk setting, a hot milk setting, a hot chocolate setting and a cold frothy milk setting, meaning all bases are covered. Simply click through on the button to select which function you want, then wait up to five minutes while the gadget works its magic.

The foam this machine created was impressive. Plus, as this model doesn’t have a non-stick coating inside, I could use a spoon to scrape out all the fluffy foam. The jug detaches from the base, with a spout for pouring, and it can be put in the dishwasher without dismantling loads of parts.

The overall design is pretty chunky and clunky. It’s going to take up space on your counter or in your cupboards, but for a larger household, you’re going to reap the rewards of that extra capacity.

I kept having to check that the price was right on this hot chocolate maker/milk frother. It has so many functions and all for less than £35. Perhaps the compromise here is the capacity – 150ml if you want “thick hot froth” means this is best suited to a one-cup-at-a-time household.

As well as thick hot foam, the chocoluxe does a light hot froth for hot chocolate (essentially with a blended but foam-free milk) and a cold froth. This means you can make most milky drinks with this little gadget. It made a silky hot chocolate that was perfectly drinkable and enjoyable. There’s nothing to stop you from making a frothy hot chocolate, either. I loved the light, hot froth for lattes and mochas – it was smooth and silky. Meanwhile, the thick froth is great for cappuccinos.

Using the chocoluxe is easy – there are four functions, which you click through on the dial. The relevant LED lights up to let you know which function you’re selecting, and emits a little beep. Other than that, it’s a fairly silent appliance. I’d have loved to see a pouring spout on it to prevent mess, and you have to unplug it at the back to wash and pour (other models have a base like a kettle), but you can’t have everything at this price.

Probably one of the best-known hot chocolate machines on the market, this is a bit of a style icon. It’s designed to look a little like a cezve (Turkish coffee pot), and is actually engineered by the kitchen-appliance powerhouse Dualit. Whether you go for a copper, black or white finish, this is a sexy little milk frother.

It’s a hot chocolate machine first, so Hotel Chocolat makes sachets of a range of shaved real chocolate to add to the machine alongside your milk. There are measures inside the metal jug, so you can see just how much milk to add. Tip in your hot chocolate powder, shavings or even a chocolate bar and press the button. The velvetiser whirls in action, first warming the milk while whisking, then, once the pot reaches temperature, the chocolate melts and folds into the milk. The result? A super-smooth hot chocolate that tastes better than the ones you’ll get at most cafés. It’s also pretty silent – so much so, I had to double-check it was actually working.

In the spirit of thorough testing, I also tried non-Hotel Chocolat hot chocolate powder and warming up milk for coffees. Both were good – the milk for coffee is best for lattes rather than a really frothy cappuccino milk. Hotel Chocolat now also makes mocha and latte coffee sachets, so you can stay on brand while enjoying a caffeine fix. As a bonus, each velvetiser comes with two cups that are perfectly sized for a hot chocolate (the device makes one cup at a time).

Hotel Chocolat has recently launched its latest all-new velvetiser, which Mollie Davies has reviewed in full. She said it “is a complete system for hot and cold barista-grade drinking chocolate”.

This is Nespresso’s premium milk frother. It offers the option of hot milk, cold milk or hot foam. This means I was able to make iced coffees easily, as well as lattes and frothy cappuccinos. If you’re pondering how it works with cold milk, the aeroccino whips it without adding the heat element, so you are getting lightly foamed, cold milk.

This is a key selling point of the aeroccino – it can heat and froth separately, unlike products such as Hotel Chocolat’s velvetiser, so you can just make warm milk and unfrothed hot chocolate in it. This made a rich, smooth hot chocolate, but I did miss the foam a bit.

You also get options of airy hot milk or dense hot milk. Airy made an extremely fluffy and fun cappuccino. The dense, hot milk was silky and pretty good atop an espresso, to make a latte.

Nespresso has recently updated the aeroccino 4. The new model now has buttons on the jug, rather than on the base. It also has recipes for hot chocolates, whereas, previously, Nespresso’s official line has been not to use anything other than milk in the brand’s milk frothers.

I like that you can put the aeroccino in the dishwasher. I don’t like that this involves dismantling the whole jug – however, I was worried about losing the smaller parts. I found it easier to wash the gadget by hand.

The industrial-style corrugated chrome jug looked fine on my kitchen worktop, but might not work with everyone’s design ideals.

With a more generous capacity than some other options in this round-up, the Melitta cremio milk frother is best-suited to people who are making more than just one hot drink at a time. It’s capable of foamy hot milk, hot milk without foam and cold milk with foam.

I made a pillowy cappuccino, with a dense microfoam that was one of the best on test. The hot milk function was great for hot chocolates, but I wished it had a bit more foam to it.

Operating the cremio was easy – there are just two buttons. A short press of one makes cold froth, and a longer press gets the hot froth going. The other button is just for hot milk. I liked the neat look of this – there’s no big base taking up space in my kitchen, and the handle isn’t too huge, either.

One downside is that the whisk attaches to the lid inside the jug (instead of the floor of the jug) via magnets. This means you take the lid off to pour the milk (there’s no pouring spout here, either), and I found it dripped milk on my kitchen work surface.

Having said all this, I was pleased to note this premium milk frother is a bit easier on the purse than some other big names in this lineup.

This simple little gadget has an eye firmly on the hot-chocolate market, hence the name. It does plain milk, too, but you’re not going to get a huge head of foam – this machine is better suited to silky coffees and hot chocolates.

Having said that, if hot chocolate is your aim, this is a great option. It’s been designed to handle segments of chocolate, as well as chocolate buttons, grated chocolate and chocolate powder. This is something I found some other milk frothers couldn’t handle, and I loved the versatility it offered me. I could pop in some Green & Blacks, for instance, and be enjoying a super-duper rich hot chocolate in minutes. A dangerous proposition.

This will come down to taste, but I love the fact that this design is handle-free. It felt modern and didn’t take up extra space on my kitchen work surface – it’s easier to store away, too. The cool-touch body means you can pick it up as soon as the hot chocolate has been made.

With four milk textures on Lakeland’s own-brand milk frother, this gadget is really good value for money. It can do frothy hot milk, frothy cold milk, chocolate milk and hot milk, and, with a 450ml capacity, it’s another good option for larger households.

I took on the chocolate-milk setting first, employing some Cadbury’s Flake bars to flavour my milk. The result was absolutely delicious, to the point of being addictive – the hot chocolate was rich, silky and chocolatey. My kids were thrilled.

The hot frothy milk was great for cappuccinos in the late morning – the froth was thick but not as finely textured as you’d get from a coffee shop.

The drawback to this milk frother is that it’s not cordless, so you can’t take it away and pour it at the table, for example. This might not be an issue if you just want to use it on the kitchen counter, though.

The Smeg milk frother has six functions: it can make hot chocolate, hot milk, hot milk with light froth, hot milk with dense froth, cold milk with light froth, cold milk with dense froth – and there’s a manual program, too. Phew.

This means, whatever texture you’re looking for, you can achieve it with the Smeg milk frother. Subtle flat whites and just-right foamy hot chocolates are all up for grabs here. I was so impressed with the functionality, and the dense foam was perfectly pillowy.

Other big ticks for me included the fact that you can stick the carafe in the dishwasher, while the tactile dial felt more premium than the standard buttons. As you might expect from Smeg, it looks gorgeous, too.