Salter Chocolatier Hot Chocolate Maker review: A choc of all trades

There’s no better way to start the day than sitting at home with a delicious frothy coffee: the Salter Chocolatier can help you on that front. Finding the space and budget for a fully-fledged coffee machine that can make espresso and froth milk can be challenging for many. A great alternative setup, which I use in my own home, is to pair a manual coffee maker like a French press, AeroPress or smaller espresso machine, with a separate milk frother.

A jug-style milk frother that bills itself primarily as a hot chocolate maker, the Salter Chocolatier can make rich hot chocolates, as well as prepare textured milk for cappuccinos, lattés, iced coffees and more. Throughout my testing, I found the Chocolatier to be a very likeable hot drinks maker, punching above its price tag in terms of features and performance. But, does it do enough to stand up to its pricier rivals?

Salter Chocolatier Hot Chocolate Maker review: What do you get for the money?

The Salter Chocolatier can be picked up for £40, which is a good deal cheaper than most of its milk-frothing and hot chocolate-making rivals. The frother has a compact cylindrical body made from matte-black plastic, with a large handle on one side and a small spout opening on the other. 

On the front of the jug is the device’s sole button, which is pressed a different number of times to activate different settings. One of four indicator lights around the button will illuminate based on the mode you have selected.

The Chocolatier has a frothing compartment that can fit up to 115ml of milk when frothing or up to 240ml when making heated milk or hot chocolates, with interior markings on the jug indicating these fill levels. At the base of the jug, there is an insert where either the frothing whisk or heating ring can be attached.

Looking at the other options out there, the Chocolatier has some varied rivals. If frothing is your primary concern, you could pick up a handheld option like Aerolatte To Go (£13), which is the cheapest and simplest way to add a little froth to your coffee. In terms of pure hot chocolate making, the Hotel Chocolat Velvetiser (£110) is the best-known and hardest-to-beat alternative. When I reviewed the Velvetiser, I enjoyed its incredibly attractive and smooth-feeling design, as well as the thoroughly decadent hot chocolates it produced. I did, however, raise my eyebrows over its price, which reduced its potential audience to hot chocolate obsessives and people seeking an impressive item for gifting. 

The best alternative in terms of both frothing and hot chocolate making is the Dualit Handheld Milk Frother (£65), which is the model I use at home. I awarded this frother five stars in my review, praising its sleek design, the range of textures of milk it could produce, as well as the tasty hot chocolates it was able to whip up.

Salter Chocolatier Hot Chocolate Maker review: What’s good about it?

As I set up the Salter Chocolatier on my countertop, I was impressed by the look and feel of the appliance. Belying its low price, the Chocolatier has a simple, handsome appearance and feels fairly sturdy in use. The jug itself is light and compact at 615g and 10 x 10 x 15.5cm (WDH), fitting snugly into my crowded kitchen workspace.

The Chocolatier offers a commendable array of functions for such a small, budget-friendly device, with four main settings: “thick, hot froth” for making cappuccinos, “light, hot froth” for lattés, “cold froth” for iced coffee drinks and, of course, “hot chocolate.” The device also has a separate attachment used for making heated milk. I found the Chocolatier simple and intuitive to use, with all of its settings being selectable via one button. The button is pressed once for cappuccino foam, twice for latté froth etc. A handy halo of indicator lights surrounding the button lets you know which setting you’ve chosen and which you’ll move onto with the next press, reducing the chance of error or confusion.

So, the Chocolatier does a lot, but does it do it well? The answer is, mostly. The thick froth setting took around 2mins 30secs, which isn’t especially quick but not terribly slow either, to produce a jug of wonderfully thick, stiff froth, perfect for cappuccinos. The latté setting worked its way through 115ml of milk in a speedy 1min 40secs, but I was less impressed with the results, which I’ll detail in the section below. Next, I tried its cold frothing mode. Not every frother offers a cold frothing mode, so I was pleasantly surprised to see one here. I was pretty impressed with the Chocolatier’s performance, as it whipped up chilled milk to a froth almost as thick and lofty as the cappuccino setting, creating a perfect topping for my iced coffee. Like nearly all the cold froth I’ve tried making, the bubbly froth slowly deflated over time, but that seems to be an unavoidable quirk of homemade cold froth.

Now, onto the main event: hot chocolate. The Chocolatier is, after all, billed primarily as a hot chocolate maker, so this test was make or break for the device. To make hot chocolate in the Chocolatier I added 35g of grated chocolate to 240ml of milk in the frothing compartment and hit the button three times. I used Green and Black’s 37% for my chocolate, as I’ve found it perfectly balanced in terms of sweetness, creaminess and richness when testing other machines. After a slightly sluggish 5mins 40secs, my hot chocolate was ready. Smooth, rich and sweet, the hot chocolate turned out by the Chocolatier was a massive step up from any powdered options I’ve tried and will, I’m sure, satisfy all comers.

Outside of its core functions, the Salter Chocolatier felt nice to use. It operated fairly quietly, was easy to lift and pour with and proved pretty simple to clean, needing just a cursory wipe down and some warm, soapy water. In hot chocolate mode, it did leave a few globs of unmelted chocolate here and there, which made cleanup a little more difficult, but I’ve found this is par for the course for a lot of home hot chocolate makers. The Dualit Cocoatiser being an exception.

Salter Chocolatier Hot Chocolate Maker review: What could be better?

I was largely happy with the Salter Chocolatier, but I did have a few quibbles worth noting. Firstly, while I like the compact size and shape of the appliance, the frothing capacity of the Chocolatier is a little limiting. If you’re whipping up froth for one, then you’ll have ample room. However, if you want to make two cappuccinos at once, you’ll struggle to get enough froth for two satisfying cups.

Speaking of froth, while I was happy with the results from most of the Chocolatier’s settings, I found the “light hot froth” setting for lattés pretty disappointing. Instead of a proper light froth, it produced heated milk with a layer of bubbles on top. It was still a step up from having an espresso topped up with regular milk, but it didn’t come close to the latté-textured milk I’ve achieved with other frothers.

Finally, and this may be an unfair comparison given the price difference, the hot chocolate I made in the Chocolatier wasn’t nearly as velvety as the drinks I made in the Hotel Chocolat Velvetiser (£110). It may cost a lot, but it is the last word in homemade hot chocolate.

Salter Chocolatier Hot Chocolate Maker review: Should you buy it?

The Salter Chocolatier is a versatile and reliable milk frother and hot chocolate maker, available at a very reasonable price. It’s compact, handsome and simple to use, produces tasty hot chocolates with ease, and also impresses with its cappuccino-making abilities and the inclusion of a cold froth setting. Its capacity is a little limited and I found its latté foam a little insubstantial, but these are forgivable considering its strengths and the budget-friendly category it sits in.

All that said, if you pay just a little more, you could pick up the five-star Dualit Handheld Milk Frother (£65), my favourite milk frother, and one that outperforms the Salter Chocolatier in terms of both frothing and hot chocolate making. And, as noted above, if you want the best homemade hot chocolate money can buy, then getting the Hotel Chocolat Velvetiser (£110) should be your top priority. However, if you’re after a cheap and cheerful all-rounder, the Chocolatier won’t disappoint.