The Morning After: Our favorite small kitchen gadgets

As we wrap up our Cooking Week on Engadget, my purchase of a milk frother is just one part of the Engadget team’s surprisingly broad selection of essential small kitchen gadgets — big spenders can scroll down to Breville’s bonkers induction cooker.
But back to me: Nespresso’s Barista Recipe Maker heats and froths your milk (or milk alternative) simply to upgrade your espressos or moka coffees into flat whites, cappuccinos and more. I’ve owned mine for a couple of years, and I love how easy it is to clean. The spin mechanism is magnet-based, too, so it’s less likely to break and should last plenty of summers filled with iced macchiatos.
We’re also cheerleading digital scales, a not-so-digital Microplane and some other coffee-making upgrades. For all the other kitchen-centric stories this week, you can find them here.
— Mat Smith
The biggest stories you might have missed
How the new PlayStation Plus stacks up against Xbox Game Pass
Epic Game Store sale includes huge discounts for ‘Final Fantasy 7’ and ‘Far Cry’
AIAIAI Studio Wireless+: Finally, low-latency headphones for music producers
Framework brings 12th Generation Intel Core chips to its modular laptop
Engadget’s Cooking Week
The villain in Reddit’s GameStop investor saga is shutting down
Melvin Capital couldn’t survive the meme stock wars.
Melvin Capital, the hedge fund considered the nemesis of the meme stock affair encompassing GameStop, Blackberry and several others, is shutting down. Investors were told the “appropriate next step” after steep losses was to liquidate assets and return cash to investors. Its public bet against GameStop and other struggling companies made it one of the largest victims of a GameStop-centric investing spree by people coordinating across Reddit and social networks. As a result, the fund reported a 53 percent loss in January 2021.
Roku teams up for its first outdoor TV
The 55-inch Element Roku TV is coming to Walmart.com for $1,300.
Roku has joined forces with Element to create a 55-inch outdoor TV, the companies announced. The Element Roku TV looks nigh-on identical to Element’s existing 55-inch Patio TV, just with a different OS. It offers a good but not spectacular 700 nits of brightness, along with 4K streaming and HDR. More importantly, though, it has tempered anti-glare glass to combat reflections and IP55 weather protection.
Tesla Autopilot under investigation following crash that killed three people
US safety regulators are now probing more than 30 incidents.
Another Federal probe into Tesla’s Autopilot system is underway. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is looking into more than 30 incidents involving Tesla’s Autopilot.
This follows an accident with a Model S, which occurred on May 12th in Newport Beach’s Mariners Mile strip. The EV reportedly struck a curb and ran into construction equipment, killing all three occupants. Three construction workers were also sent to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. Police declined to say whether Tesla’s Autopilot was involved.
HP’s premium laptop revamp includes more OLED displays and new CPUs
Most Envy and Spectre notebooks are getting refreshed specs and features
HP is bringing upgrades and updates across practically all of its premium notebooks, including clamshells and 2-in-1s. The two stars of the updated Envy line are the Envy x360 13.3-inch and the Envy 16-inch. There are OLED display options for both, and all of the new Envy laptops are also getting upgraded 5-megapixel webcams with head tracking and beamforming mics to help you look and sound your best during video calls. You even get native handwriting recognition and a hidden magnetic stylus mount on the side of the system.
Breville’s PolyScience Control Freak is a pricey yet precise induction cooktop
Also, it’s $1,500.
Whether it’s a single burner or a full cooktop, induction tops heat faster than regular stovetops and offer more precise temperature control. Yes, yes, you can get a standalone burner for under $100, but there’s also Breville’s PolyScience Control Freak: a $1,500 induction device that reaches exact temps quickly and holds them there. The burner has a temperature range of 86 to 482 degrees Fahrenheit (30 to 250 Celsius). This gives you the option of everything from low-heat slow cooking to high-temp searing. We had to try it.
The current-gen version of ‘The Witcher 3’ is now slated to arrive in late 2022
After many delays on what is a pretty old game.
The long-awaited PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S version of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt once again has a release window. The new edition, which is also coming to PC, is expected to arrive in the last three months of the year, according to CD Projekt Red. It will be a free upgrade if you own the respective last-gen version on PC, PS4 or Xbox One.
As we wrap up our Cooking Week on Engadget, my purchase of a milk frother is just one part of the Engadget team’s surprisingly broad selection of essential small kitchen gadgets — big spenders can scroll down to Breville’s bonkers induction cooker. But back to me: Nespresso’s Barista Recipe Maker…
Recent Posts
- Elon Musk says Grok 2 is going open source as he rolls out Grok 3 for Premium+ X subscribers only
- FTC Chair praises Justice Thomas as ‘the most important judge of the last 100 years’ for Black History Month
- HP acquires Humane AI assets and the AI pin will suffer a humane death
- HP acquires Humane AI assets and the AI pin may suffer a humane death
- HP acquires Humane Ai and gives the AI pin a humane death
Archives
- February 2025
- January 2025
- December 2024
- November 2024
- October 2024
- September 2024
- August 2024
- July 2024
- June 2024
- May 2024
- April 2024
- March 2024
- February 2024
- January 2024
- December 2023
- November 2023
- October 2023
- September 2023
- August 2023
- July 2023
- June 2023
- May 2023
- April 2023
- March 2023
- February 2023
- January 2023
- December 2022
- November 2022
- October 2022
- September 2022
- August 2022
- July 2022
- June 2022
- May 2022
- April 2022
- March 2022
- February 2022
- January 2022
- December 2021
- November 2021
- October 2021
- September 2021
- August 2021
- July 2021
- June 2021
- May 2021
- April 2021
- March 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- September 2018
- October 2017
- December 2011
- August 2010