Welcome to Melting Mug!

Hello, and welcome to my blog all about hot chocolate!

Why did I want to make a blog about hot chocolate? I love chocolate in general, but I especially love to drink it! I’ve learned so much about hot chocolate recently, and I want to share what I’ve been learning. I also want to also be able to connect with other hot chocolate lovers and hear about your ideas and recipes.

I’ve always loved hot chocolate. Actually, I should say hot cocoa - there’s a difference. My entire life, I’d only ever had the packet mixes of hot cocoa. Swiss Miss, Nestle, the kinds found in every grocery store. Sometimes I would add things to the packet mix. I’d melt some chocolate chips or a candy cane in it. I’d make it with milk instead of water, I’d use two packets instead of one, or I’d add flavored coffee creamers into it. Anything to give those packets some extra kick. And it worked, I made some decent hot cocoas.

Then late last year, I learned that what we Americans call hot chocolate is actually hot cocoa, and in Europe and Mexico (and other places), they make REAL hot chocolate, using actual melted chocolate instead of a powder mix. It turns out those grocery store hot cocoas are mostly powdered milk.

This probably shouldn’t have been surprising to me, but it was.

So I tried some of the real stuff, with the melted chocolate. WOW! What a difference! It instantly changed everything I thought I loved about hot chocolate. Then I learned there were many, many different ways to create these amazing hot chocolates. Different kinds of chocolate, different sweeteners, different spices added in, even eggs! I felt like I had to try all of them!

When you try some of these recipes, you’ll see what I mean.

I’m still just getting started on the journey. I’ve had interest from friends, and I figure there’s even more interest out there in the world, so I’m starting this blog.

If you like hot chocolate, or have only ever had hot cocoa packet mixes, you’ve come to the right place! I’m going to be posting recipes and the results as I work my way through a few hot chocolate recipe books. I’ve also come up with quite a few of my own, and have ideas for many more. I’ll also be giving my thoughts on a lot of the better mixes out there, trying recipes from the internet, and who knows, maybe we’ll even visit those packet mixes once in a while and see what we can do with them.

Please make the recipes! Once you find what you like and don’t like, experiment, add in more things you like. See if you can come up with a flavor of hot chocolate that’s never been created before. Please post in the comments, share everything you try. Maybe together we’ll come up with the next best hot chocolate ever! Do you know of some awesome chocolate company that makes an amazing hot chocolate? Let me know and I’ll track it down.

That’s the mission statement. So let’s get on with it already!