Emily Buehler, our Website Coordinator, shares these tips for hot chocolate.
You don’t need to melt chocolate bars to achieve truly delicious, creamy hot chocolate. Making impressive hot chocolate is possible if you follow two rules: use good milk, and measure. I chose Ran-Lew Dairy’s whole milk because it has such a great flavor. Randy’s cows are on pasture all day, except when they amble over to the milking parlor twice per day. Their supplemental feed is locally grown grain that is GMO free. Randy bottles the milk on-site: it’s pumped into a refridgerated box truck that houses the bottling machine. He pasteurizes it as required by law but does not homogenize it, so be sure to shake it before using. (Read more about Ran-Lew Dairy here.)
I also used Equal Exchange’s hot cocoa mix. According to the label, I should use 2 tablespoons of mix per 6 ounces of liquid, presumably water (and presumably these are fluid ounces). Since I have no idea how to measure an ounce, I did a quick conversion and discovered this is 3/4 cup, which is not enough hot chocolate so I doubled the recipe. In addition, because I was using milk instead of water, I substituted plain baking cocoa for some of the hot cocoa mix; this had the added benefit of making the drink more chocolatey and less sweet.
Here’s the final recipe:
- 1 1/2 cup Ran-Lew Dairy whole milk
- 3 Tbsp Equal Exchange hot cocoa mix
- 1 Tbsp Equal Exchange baking cocoa
Directions:
Put ingredients in a medium sized pot. Whisk them together until the powders are incorporated. Turn the heat on to medium or medium-high (depending on how closely you want to watch the pot). Continue to stir the milk as it heats, particularly later in the process; don’t let it burn or boil over. When it is hot enough, pour it into a mug and enjoy.