What Is a Babyccino?

A babyccino is a small cup of frothed milk, usually dusted with cocoa or cinnamon and sometimes served with a marshmallow on the side. It contains no coffee. It exists so that a child sitting in a cafe with a parent can have a drink that looks like the grown-up one.

What is in it

• Milk, steamed and frothed so it is mostly foam.
• A dusting of cocoa powder, drinking chocolate or cinnamon on top.
• Sometimes a marshmallow, a biscuit or a small spoon for eating the foam.

The name is a play on cappuccino, and the look is borrowed from it too: a small cup with a white cap and a brown dusting. That resemblance is the whole point.

Where it comes from

The babyccino is generally credited to Australian and New Zealand cafe culture, where taking young children to a cafe is ordinary and baristas already had a steam wand in hand. It spread to the UK and then further as the same style of cafe did. Many cafes give one away or charge very little for it, since it costs a splash of milk and makes a family more likely to stay for a second coffee.

Does a babyccino have caffeine?

Effectively none. There is no coffee in it. Cocoa powder does contain a small amount of caffeine and theobromine, but a light dusting over foam carries only a trace. A version made with chocolate syrup or a spoonful of drinking chocolate carries a little more sugar and a little more of both, still far below anything with coffee in it.

The one thing to check is that you actually received a babyccino. On a busy counter a small cup of foam can be mistaken for a macchiato or a piccolo, and those are espresso drinks. If the milk looks tinted rather than white under the dusting, ask.

How warm it should be

This is the part that matters most. Steamed milk for an adult drink is usually taken to a temperature that is hot to hold, and that is too hot for a child to drink straight away. A good babyccino is steamed to a noticeably lower temperature, warm rather than hot.

Many cafes do this automatically. It is still worth asking for it warm rather than hot, and touching the side of the cup before handing it over. If it is uncomfortable to hold, it is too hot to drink.

Milk alternatives

Most cafes will make one with oat, soy or another plant milk. Oat foams best of the common options. If a child has an allergy, say so clearly, because the same steam jug is often rinsed rather than washed between drinks. How each plant milk behaves when heated is covered in milk alternatives in coffee.

Making one at home

1. Warm a small amount of milk gently in a pan or the microwave, only until warm.
2. Froth it. A handheld whisk such as the PowerLix frother turns warm milk into a thick foam in under a minute, and it is easier to control the temperature this way than with a steam wand.
3. Pour into a small cup, spoon the foam on top and dust with cocoa or cinnamon.
4. Check the temperature against the back of your hand before serving.

Use unsweetened cocoa for the dusting if you would rather keep sugar out of it. Children rarely notice the difference, because the appeal is the foam.

Why cafes bother

It is a small courtesy with a practical effect: a child who has something of their own to drink is happier to sit for twenty minutes. For the adults at the same table, the smallest milk drink that still tastes of coffee is the piccolo.