Hot Chocolate
I love hot chocolate. I mean, l LOVE hot chocolate. When we moved to Winter Park, CO, I began my search for the best hot chocolate. It’s a ski resort town, after all. These people celerbrate winter better then most places I’ve lived. They really love snow. So, hot chocolate has to be excellent, right? For the life of me, I could not find a great hot chocolate. Some places did okay, but nothing was satifying. Not in the way I felt it should be. So, my search for making the best hot chocolate began. Most bloggers or enthusiasts online said to buy a good chocolate bar, melt it, and stir with milk. Most really good chocolate bars are at least $10 each. So, I’d spend $30-$40 on chocolate (to husband’s dismay) and melt them to try to make a great hot chocolate. It was expensive and not great. Either too dark or too sugary.
I’m not the type of person to give up that easy. I do have experience in research, after all. So, I kept digging. I started to notice that most hot chocolate lovers were also making their own chocolate. Hmmmm. I’m starting to love this. So, I buy some pre-roasted nibs online. I buy a small melanger. My husband gets involved, and helps me load the melanger with nibs. We go to bed that night while the melanger is running right outside our bedroom door. I’m nervous. Who keeps something running overnight? For days on end? Chocolate makers do. The next morning, we check. The nibs are ground into tiny particles. It’s time to add sugar. We add the sugar and wait another 3 days with this machine running, noisy, in our kitchen. Then we taste it. Amazing! It’s the best chocolate I’ve ever had.
And within a couple months, I’ve got more than enough chocolate to make Hot Chocolate. I make a European sipping chocolate. You know, literally melted chocolate with just a bit of milk/alternative milk. No corn starch or thickener. I love Spain, but I don’t want anything getting in the way of my chocolate. (In Madrid, Spain, I’d had some really good hot chocolate that was so thick, it reminded me of hot chocolate pudding. They serve it with a stick of bread to dip in it.) Amazing and fun, but not really what I’m hoping for. Florence, Italy serves their hot chocolate as melted chocolate, no thickeners. And I LOVED it. This is what I am going for. I try different ratios of milk and my homemade chocolate. All of them are really good. Finally! This is it! (We serve The Florence at the shop in Winter Park, CO.)
I added more milk to make it less intense. My kids don’t like the really intense hot chocolate like I do. I find a really good Classic American that my kids love. This one is served at the shop too.
I experimented with other spices and found a vanilla, cinnamon, and more chocolate is so, so great. I call it a Deluxe Hot Chocolate. If your vegan, it’s called a Naughty Vegan. It’s more sugar than most of my vegan friends would prefer, which is why it’s naughty. This one is served in the shop and online.
When there is less sugar, there is a dry finish. It’s almost unpleasant. What can fix that? I tried a lot of things, and found ginger is an excellent replacement. A Healthy Vegan Hot Chocolate: has less sugar and more chocolate than the Classic American and Deluxe, but so intense like The Florence. So, this drink gets you with amazing camino verde 70% chocolate and then has a fresh ginger finish. It’s so darn good.
Hot chocolate and spice go well together. I wanted to find another way to experience this relationship. I wanted to push the boundaries of spices. I’m not really a spicy person but it’s fun to try new things, right? Cinnamon. Vanilla. Cayenne Pepper. And a few other spices make up the Spicy hot chocolate. I try to warn people when they order it, it has some real kick to it. But people who love spice, love this drink. This one is served int he Winter Park, CO shop.
Hot Chocolates are a perfect way to enjoy a chilly, snowy day. I hope these hot chocolate drinks bring people joy as they celebrate winter (or any season).