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Affordable Best Espresso Cappuccino Machines – reviewed

After days of research here is the good and bad of what was found.  First thing to note is that, although it seems like a good idea to get a combination coffee/espresso machine, reviews reflected alot of negativity in quality of machines and quality of brewing with anything under $300.  This was especially prevalent in combos in the $100 range with many people reporting broken machines of all brands.

If you are looking for soley an espresso/cappuccino machine for less than $300.00 you will be sacrificing.  The best value on the market currently, appears to be:

Espressione Café Retro
Spidem Villa
Solis Palazzo

These machines range in features but are reported as being reliable while excellent at making an excellent espresso vs. other models with similar features in the $700+ range.  On the mid to lower range, we found the Nespresso line of machines to report excellent frothing, good quality but questionable brewing for the price.

Our favorite mid to low level machine was the Saeco Magic Cappuccino Machine with a price point of about $200.  This was out of the true low-price range but not quite at the mid range of $300.   Reviews were stellar on the qualiy of the machine and the quality of espresso that the machine produced.  If you can sport a little more money, this might be worth the buy instead of worrying if the lowend lines will break or not.

The two main names that came up in the $50 – $150 range were DeLonghi and the Mr. Coffee lines.  The most popular machine we found was the DeLonghi EC155 Espresso Maker.  On Amazon.com this was found to have a 4 star rating out of 200+ reviews and a price point of $94.00.  At a glance this seemed like a good machine but there did seem to be a prevalent issue that people report with DeLonghi machines on a whole which is reliability and DeLonghi backing its product lines.  Many people reported “Good while it works” and “Couldn’t get the company to respond about my new broken machine.”

I personally bought a DeLonghi machine to evaluate and for the price point of $100 it seems too good to be true but the reality is that when I pulled on of their machines out of the box I could feel immediatly that this felt like lower quality in comparison to my Cuisinart machines.  I have not mentioned Krupps as there are many hit or miss things with their products.  With Krupps, quality of plastic parts breaking and unreliable frothing due to lack of pressure plague there $100 range products.

The verdict is this. 

• Saeco Magic Cappuccino Machine - best value if you can sport an extra $125 for reliability, form, function, and quality of espresso. 
• DeLonghi EC155 – best espresso machine in the sub-$100 range.  Quality is an issue but becomes a moot point since all machines in this price range have quality issues.

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Williams-Sonoma Goldtouch™ Sandwich Cookie Cake Pans Review

Let me start off by saying I’m kinda of a junk food addict.  I love ice cream, cookies, chips, not so much candy, but a lot of other things that are horrible.  So when my sister get me this cake pan set from Williams-Sonoma (and the additional cake batter and butter cream frosting/filling ingredient box as well) let’s just say my sweet tooth was pretty excited.

For many of you on the east coast, the final shopping weekbefore christmas was filled not with actual shopping, but with snow.  A LOT of snow.  So much snow that many couldn’t actually get out to go shopping.  Such was the case for my sister.  When she was able to go shopping, she only really made it to the closest shopping center and got all of her presents for everyone there.  Mine ended up being the Williams-Sonoma Goldtouch™ Sandwich Cookie Cake Pans and the Chocolate Sandwich Cookie Cake Mix.  I wasn’t as excited as if I had gotten, say, Assassins Creed II (review coming soon, I still have to finish the game), but was excited enough to imagine it looking and tasting just like one of those Oreo Cakesters.  What I ended up with was something else.

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Guinness Goodness

Guinness is some fine tasting beer.  Excellent on a cold snowy day.  Especially good for a night out.  Why … well funny enough Guinness is super low in alcohol content.  Have you ever had a Coors in your hand and had someone make a remark about your manhood?  Well Coors is actually higher in alcohol content than Guinness.  Guinness comes in at about 4.0% by volume and Coors Light comes in at about 4.2%.  This means if my math is correct … you can have 1 extra Guinness for every 20 Coors Lights you could drink …

Now for some bad news.  Guinness website needs to be less pretty and more for the everyday user.  I couldn't find information on my favorite beer without hitting the sitemap link at the bottom.  Bad bad bad. 

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