Hot chocolate, anyone?
With snow in our local forecast for Wednesday night into Thursday, I knew it would be a night of not doing much outside of catching up on some television and maybe some blog posts.
I don’t know what made me think of it — maybe the first significant snowfall we’ve seen in two years — but I got the urge for some hot chocolate. I’ve never been a coffee drinker (I know, odd for somebody who worked in newspapers), so my “cold weather” drinks of choice have always been hot chocolate or tea.
Getting the necessary ingredients.
One thing I miss about not living in a place bigger than my current town is the ability to run to the local Dunkin’ Donuts to grab a hot chocolate. I may not always look to go to those places for the unhealthy (but yummy) food, but I love the hot chocolate. I would rather a sugar free version, but sometimes you have to splurge.
I wasn’t about to brave heading out for a 20-mile ride over curvy and hilly roads for hot chocolate from Dunkin’ Donuts, however. That meant I was looking at the sugar free Swiss Miss I have handy. But I wanted a bit more.
Google saved me.
I did a search for a single-serving of hot chocolate to see what I could come up with. Most of the recipes I saw were quite easy, so I needed to dig around to see what was available to use. It turns out I needed a few things, so off I went to the local grocery store. As I was sweeping off the car, I figured we were just shy of two inches of snow and it was still coming down.
Looks like a little snow this year.
The forecast is calling for anywhere from 4 to 12 inches, depending on the area and the source — the National Weather Service, The Weather Channel or the local television news. Turns out we got about 6 or so inches. At least that’s what it seemed like when snow blowing this stuff.
I intend, at some point in the future when I’m a little more on my feet and back working and such, to do some “foodie” things with this blog. Believe me, it won’t be a food blog by any means — but it will be more along the lines of things I’m eating and such. But that’s in the future.
This post is something along those lines as I want to share this hot chocolate experience and my thoughts.
I ended up buying the Hershey’s cocoa because it was only 40 cents more expensive than the store brand. It also had a similar recipe on the container to the one I had found online.
Score!
When I got home, I opted to use the recipe on the Hershey’s container, with some slight tweaks.
Here’s the recipe:
- 2 Tbsp. sugar
- 2 Tbsp. cocoa
- A dash of salt
- 1 cup of milk
- 1/4 tsp. vanilla extract
Mix the sugar, cocoa and salt in a mug. They say to microwave the milk on high for 1-1 1/2 minutes or until hot. However, I did it the old fashioned way — on the stove. Then slowly add the hot milk into the mug and stir well. Stir in the vanilla extract.
The finished product.
I used Equal instead of sugar and it was fine. I also probably had 9 ounces of milk, rather than the cup (8 ounces) it called for.
It wasn’t a bad recipe. I think it could actually be good, pending some tweaks. Tasting it, I thought it was extremely chocolatey. I liken it to a hot chocolate I got at Starbucks a few years ago. It had an extremely strong chocolate taste, almost making it a big stronger than needed.
I will be trying this again soon. The tweaks I will make include:
- Likely 1 to 1 1/2 Tbsp. of cocoa
- Likely a cup and a half or so of milk — I want to fill the mug
In the end, it was pretty successful. Using the Equal helped me cut down on the sugar, which I’m always looking to do. I think if it has a slightly lighter taste, it will be a definite keeper.
Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!