"Mexican" Hot Chocolate

This is not really a traditional Mexican hot chocolate recipe, but it does contain the crucial elements of vanilla, chile, and cinnamon that Canadians and Americans tend to associate with "Mexican" hot chocolate. It is incredibly rich and extremely thick. You're basically drinking warm ganache. Recipe as written, the implication is that this is meant to serve one, but I'd recommend divying it up between at least two or three people!

I wasn't sure whether I was going to like this hot chocolate or not. Honestly, even after drinking a bunch, I still wasn't entirely sure whether I liked it or not. I came to the conclusion that I do, in fact, like it. The flavour is quite nice and it's pleasingly chocolate-y, but I think it's too rich for me to want to drink more thank a few sips of it. I actually found I enjoyed it more when I used it to dip things in. It's got plenty of body and clings and coats things well. And the flavour is bold enough that it'll hold its own against anything you care to dip in it.

This makes a nice hot chocolate and it's wonderfully quick and easy to put together. But, after my experiences with it today, I actually think its true calling might be as chocolate fondue! I would be VERY keen on making this again and assembling an assortment of fruit, cookies, marshmallows, and various other goodies and having myself a little fondue party. And the great thing is that the added milk means it remains liquid over a wider range of temperatures so, once cooked, you should be able to serve it up without the need of any sort of portable heat source or fondue pot. I'm really quite excited to give this a go!

Watch this space for updates and, in the meantime, here's the recipe:

Mexican Hot Chocolate (or Fondue)

Slightly adapted from Joshua Weissman

Ingredients

• 1 (3") cinnamon stick
• 1 whole dried chile¹
• 1 1/2 c. milk
• 225g dark chocolate, broken into pieces
• 1/2 vanilla bean²
• 2 Tbsp. brown sugar
• small pinch (maybe 1/16 tsp.) coarse sea salt

Directions

1. Toast the cinnamon stick and chile over medium heat.
2. Reduce heat to low and add milk and chocolate.
3. Slice open the vanilla bean and scrape out the paste. Add both the paste and the empty pod.
4. Stir in sugar and salt.
5. Continue to cook over low or medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens (5-6 minutes).
6. Remove from heat and pour into mug(s), removing cinnamon stick, chile³, and vanilla pod as they surface.
7. Top with whipped cream, marshmallows, or other toppings of choice.

---

¹ I used an arbol chile but I think a pasilla would've also worked well. ^Back
2 I was all out of vanilla beans, so I fished an expended vanilla pod out of my vanilla sugar jar and steeped the hot chocolate with that and then stirred in 1 tsp. of vanilla extract just after taking it off the heat. ^Back
3 If you like your hot chocolate with a little more kick, leave the chile in and give the mixture a quick whiz in the blender before serving to puré the chile into the mixture. ^Back

I've been drinking a lot of tea lately. (Which is good because we have a huge tea backlog and this means we're actually slowly but surely working our way through some of it. TF and I have actually made a noticeable dent in the mountain of tea over the past few weeks!) That said, today I was in the mood for hot chocolate. I've made various types of hot chocolate before: there is the ubiquitous "just add water" powder of course and various types of homemade cocoa. This recipe is very similar to most of the homemae hot cocoa's I've done over the years, but it occurred to me that I don't think I've ever bothered to write down the basic hot cocoa formula. I just end up doing something similar but slightly different every time. So, here's one that came up in my YouTube suggestions. It's good: pleasingly chocolatey and not too sweet. Goes well with a few mini marshmallows! And it's very easy to tweak and adjust according to your preferences.

Hot Cocoa

Slightly adapted from Joshua Weissman

Ingredients

• 2 1/8 c. whole milk
• 1/4 c. cocoa powder, preferably Dutched
• 3 Tbsp. brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
• mini marshmallows or whipped cream (optional)

Directions

1. Sift cocoa powder into milk.
2. Stir in sugar.
3. Warm over medium heat, stirring frequently. Do not boil, but make sure to get it very hot.
4. Just before mixture comes to a boil, remove from heat.
5. Stir in vanilla extract.
6. Divide mixture between two mugs.
7. Add mini marshmallows and/or whipped cream to taste.

I've been very much in the mood for baking lately, but I'm also fighting a cold which means I don't really have the energy to do much. In lieu of baking, I decided to peruse the Cooking in the Archives blog to see what they've been up to. I don't always agree with their interpretations of the recipes they post, but I do very much appreciate the work they do in posting them. I especially appreciate the manuscript transcriptions as I find trying to read 400-year-old handwriting quite difficult most of the time. And even if I would prepare the dish a different way, it's great that they're interested and enthusiastic and putting this stuff out there.

It looks like they most recently posted a seed cake recipe, which I plan on taking a crack at and posting additional commentary on in the near future. I wasn't up for doing anything too involved today though. But... just a little further down the page, they have a hot chocolate recipe. This one really got the creative juices flowing for me. After sitting down a putting together a few different flavour combinations on paper, I decided to give one a try. I went with dark chocolate and orange because TF is a big fan of that particular pairing.

So far it has been a rousing success. TF absolutely loves it! It's dark and rich and not too sweet with a distinct orange kick. I was going for something along the lines of the dark chocolate version of a Terry's Chocolate Orange in drinkable form and TF says I nailed it.

I've used quite a few different ways to add orange flavour to this recipe. I'm sure you could probably achieve the same or very close to the same effect with slightly larger quantities of just one or two of these. It's worth experimenting with before you go out and buy a load of ingredients just for this recipe. I mostly used all these things because I already had them on hand and this seemed like a fun use for them.

Dark Chocolate-Orange Hot Cocoa

Adapted from Cooking in the Archives

Ingredients

Mix

• 100g dark (70%) chocolate, chopped
• 1/2 c. Dutched cocoa powder
• 1/2 c. sugar
• 4 tsp. orange zest
• 1 Tbsp. Cointreau
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp. orange flower water
• 1/2 tsp. orange extract
• 1/4-1/2 tsp. orange oil
• 1/16-1/8 tsp. ground cloves¹

To Prepare

• 1 1/2 c. milk
• 4-5 Tbsp. of cocoa mix

Directions

Mix

1. Combine all the ingredients and mix well, paying particular attention to make sure the liquid ingredients don't cause clumps.

To Prepare

1. Warm milk over medium heat until steaming, but not quite boiling.
2. Add cocoa mix and stir until all chocolate has melted and the mixture looks smooth and even.
3. Pour into mug and enjoy.

---

¹ I only used a very tiny amount (1/16 tsp.) of cloves. I didn't want the finished mix to noticeably taste of cloves. I just wanted a tiny hint to round out the orange flavour. If you want more of a "spiced orange" flavour, go with 1/8 tsp. of cloves and consider adding 1/4 tsp. of ground cinnamon as well. ^Back