By Published on

Yet Another Hot Chocolate Recipe

Ceramic cup of hot chocolate sitting on a window ledge
Image by StockSnap from Pixabay.

But... why?

Less sugar, mostly. I was having a hard time finding something not absolutely stuffed with sugar, and also easy enough to make quickly with just some hot water. Here's the recipe, minus lengthy ramblings and irrelevant stories.

You will be making up a batch of powdered mix, which you will enliven with hot water and enrich with chocolate chips come drinking time. This recipe makes about 14 servings of 8-ish ounces each.

Shopping list

  • Nonfat dry milk
    • With fat is probably fine too, nonfat is just easier to find.
  • Quality Dutch process cocoa powder
    • Do not skimp on this. This will make or break your cup of cocoa. I use Guittard Cocoa Rouge but there are plenty of other good cocoas. Avoid non-Dutch process cocoas as the acidity will upset your stomach.
  • Chocolate chips
    • Darkest you can find.
  • Cornstarch
    • This does wonderful things for the texture of your delicious drink.
  • Salt
    • The standard flavor-bringer-outer.
  • Sweetener of choice
    • Choose something which will dissolve easily when stirred into hot liquid. Most granular sweeteners will; maybe don't use rock candy.

Make your powder mix

  1. In a 64 oz airtight lidded container, add:
    1. 1 1/2 cups powdered milk
    2. 1 cup cocoa powder
    3. 1 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
    4. 1/2 teaspoon salt
    5. 3/4 cup sugar equivalent sweetener, to taste, or leave this out entirely and add it later
  2. Close the container and shake it thoroughly, or stir it carefully, or whatever you have to do to mix the powder up completely. Set your sealed mix aside.

Stir up a cup

Grab a big 16-ish ounce mug, a fork, a tablespoon measure, the chocolate chips, and your powder mix.

  1. Obtain about 8 ounces of hot water, close to boiling. I'm blessed with a dispenser so mine is consistently 195 F; you just need enough to melt the chocolate chips.
  2. Measure a scant tablespoon of chocolate chips into your mug. If you're adding sweetener separately, add it now too.
  3. Pour all of the water over the chips into the mug. Stir enthusiastically with a fork until it's all melted pretty well into the water. This works only because there is so much more water than chocolate.
  4. Measure a flat 3 tablespoons of powder mix into your mug, if you did not sweeten the powder mix; use 3 rounded tablespoons if you did.
  5. Stir again with the fork until well-blended.
    • In my experience this powder mixes into water better than commercial powders, so I don't make it into mud beforehand with a small amount of water and something something shear physics powder wetting.
  6. Let cool for a couple of minutes, and enjoy.