I associate winter with white fog of the day, and black of the night. For every reason, it is my favorite time of the year. I enjoy going out in this weather, layering clothes, and eating out more than I normally do rest of the year. The cold, and the fog makes me seek seafood, dry fruits, winter delights, and winter comfort food such as soups, and a winter drink — hot chocolate. Came the season, I made my first homemade hot chocolate of the week.
If you don’t make hot chocolate often, you might find a commercial drinking hot chocolate product easy to prepare. But I’m guessing that if you like to indulge for the best hot chocolate experience, you would know that there are a lot of ways to make it. Hot chocolate lovers love cocoa solids in their drink. This is exactly what many brands are trying to incorporate in their hot chocolate in recent years. If you want to look for commercials products, you’d definitely be able to find the chocolate lovers hot chocolate drink of your dreams. Also, if you like mild chocolate flavors, be at ease because many brands cater this segment of the market. But today, I’m addressing the first segment. A hot chocolate DIY that is not with an express readymade product, but with unsweetened cocoa powder.
Baking apart, you do not need to follow fixed ingredient quantities chefs usually give. Every food is custom to your taste, and preferred ingredient quantity. I’ll let you know how I do a DIY soothing hot chocolate. Feel free to change ingredient quantities as you like.
How To Make Hot Chocolate DIY
For a mug of hot chocolate drink, add about 250 ml of milk in a pan, and put it on heat. That is a mug of milk in other words. Be sure to use full fat milk, or you would not do hot chocolate justice. Add 1.5 heaped teaspoons of cocoa powder in milk. When you look for cocoa, the label should read that it is fit for both drinking, and baking; that’s the kind of cocoa powder we are looking for. I used “ Cadbury Cocoa”, e125g. It says “Cocoa for drinking and baking”. I must say it is not the best one out there. But you could get really good quality cocoa of many brands from the market.
Take a manual whisker, and keep whisking it throughout to avoid any clumps. After that, you add thickeners, and flavorings.
I like my chocolate drink not too sweet. For me, it should taste like pure chocolate. Now, in goes two tablespoons of sweetened condensed milk, and a tablespoon of cream. Add a few grains of salt. Just before the last boil, add a drop of vanilla or a few grains from vanilla pod. Give it a last whisk, and pour.
A few things that you’d want to take into consideration.
- Salt is an option. I never make any dessert, or chocolate without salt. For me, it is a necessity. But you can choose to skip it, if you like.
- I like my drink somewhere between thin, and thick. For me, condensed milk, and cream do the job. So I don’t add corn starch. But if you want it thicker, you can do two things. Add about half to one teaspoon of corn starch (mixed in a couple of tablespoons of water) according to your preferred thickness, in the pan. The second option is, to replace cocoa powder with a solid good quality dark chocolate bar, around 50g. A proper chocolate would also give it the drinking sauce like texture. If I were to get a bar, I would eat one, rather than breaking it down to pieces for the drink. But treat yourself to the best flavor and texture as you wish.
- Also, sweetened condensed milk makes hot chocolate sweet enough for me. If you want, you could add more, or skip it for honey, or brown sugar. But in that case, you might want to use corn starch, or proper chocolate as thickening agents.
And that’s it! There you have it, your DIY hot chocolate treat!
I like my chocolate hot, and I mean really hot. I pour myself steaming winter drink straight from the pan. I prepare myself for the night, make myself cozy in my duvet, and hold a book, while I sip on the steaming hot chocolate. This is what I need for a comforting evening. Have an amazing winter!
