Recipe - Malted Hot Chocolate

It's pretty obvious what we're going to make this time. That iconic package says it all - Whoppers hot chocolate! This is pretty much the drinkable equivalent of that classic candy.

I've loved Whoppers since I was a kid. Well, I love almost all candy, so singling out Whoppers isn't anything special. I've also always loved malted milk shakes, although honestly, I never really noticed the "malted" part until I was much older.




Lets take a look a the ingredients and go through them.

1 1/4 cup 2% milk
2 1/2 tbsp malt powder
1 oz Villar's 63% chocolate
1 tbsp powdered sugar
1 tsp cocoa powder
1/2 tsp vanilla

The Whoppers are optional, they are not a necessary ingredient. We're only going to use them for a topping. The magic is capturing that flavor without using them!








The real secret to this hot chocolate is the malted milk powder. Malted milk powder is a mix of barley, wheat flour, and powdered milk. If you taste it by itself, it kind of tastes like a crushed shortbread cookie. It definitely adds a very distinct flavor to things. It's exactly what they add into milkshakes to make malts. It also turns up in Whoppers in a very small amount.

When I first started experimenting with this one, I was adding only a little bit of the malted milk powder. I could not notice a huge influence from it, and eventually found that I'd have to add quite a lot to really get that malt flavor. To match the flavor of Whoppers, some sugar had to be added, as well. If you prefer the flavor of a malted milkshake over the flavor of Whoppers, you could just leave the sugar out of this recipe.

The chocolate I'm using in this one is 63% Villar's dark chocolate. Lately I've been favoring chocolates that are 70% or higher, but for this one, to match the sugary flavor of the chocolate in Whoppers, we're going lower cocoa content, higher sugar content. Villar's also has a bit more of a candy flavor than some of the more artisanal chocolates like Valrhona or Sharffenberger.

The vanilla extract I'm using I purchased in Mexico. I was there in November 2014 for my wedding and found this in the gift shop at the resort we were staying at. This stuff is wonderful! Extremely flavorful, and seems to be a little stronger than our typical vanilla here in the US.

While researching it online, I learned a little something. On the back of the label of this vanilla, it says "This product does not contain coumarin". I did not know what that was, but I was curious. It turns out that coumarin is mildly toxic and affects the liver and kidneys. It's banned in the US, but some cheaper Mexican vanilla uses it as a substitute for real vanilla. There's a great little write up about it on Snopes. So while I don't have to worry about it in the vanilla I picked up, it's something to keep an eye out for if you are purchasing vanilla overseas.

Get your milk warming up over medium heat and put the malt powder in right away. I feel like this gives it the most opportunity to dissolve, absorb in, or whatever it is it does when added to a liquid.

Once everything starts to heat up, go ahead and add in the chocolate, sugar, and cocoa powder. Once it's just about boiling, add in that delicious vanilla and take it off the heat.

I made some strong vanilla whipped cream, and then sprinkled the crushed Whoppers candy on top of that. Mmmmm, delicious! The Whoppers bits drop down into the hot chocolate, warm up and start melting, and make these perfect little morsels to search around for with your spoon. It's a perfect dessert hot chocolate.

Recipe - Toffee Hot Chocolate

Besides writing my own blog, naturally I follow a few other chocolate blogs. Cortney over at The Chocolate Tourist is doing all kinds of fun things regarding chocolate. Equal parts chocolate reviews, recipes, book reviews, travel blogging, and informational posts, I contacted her a few weeks ago to ask if I could link to her blog from mine. She surprised me by not only agreeing, but asking me to join her for an interview and to present a recipe on her Monday Mug series!

Of course I agreed! What fun! After a little back and forth on what to do, we finally decided on a recipe for toffee hot chocolate. She wanted to post in honor of Father's Day, and her father loves Heath bars.

You can see her post by clicking HERE to head over to The Chocolate Tourist, or you can watch the video right here.

We had a great time hanging out and talking about chocolate. It's great to chat with someone who has the same passion for all of the amazing varieties of chocolate out there in the world.

In the video, I mention a place in Amsterdam that had wonderful hot chocolate, served in the perfect fashion. I couldn't remember the name of the place while we were doing the interview, but the name of the place is Bagels & Beans.

I think it's a small chain of shops there in Amsterdam, and it was definitely one of the best hot chocolates I had while I was there. One of these days I'll have to do a post on every place I visited. There is certainly no shortage of amazing hot chocolate in Amsterdam!

Let's get back to that toffee hot chocolate. In case the video went too fast for you, here's what you'll need:

1 cup of milk (whole or 2%)
2 tbsp toffee
2 tsp cocoa powder

Pretty simple set of ingredients. Heat the milk, add in the toffee, and stir until it's incorporated. It's going to take a few minutes for that toffee to melt, and it's going to stick to whatever you're stirring with. It gets pretty gooey. Just keep going, eventually it will all dissolve. Then add the cocoa powder, top with whipped cream and a crushed up Heath bar (or toffee pieces), and enjoy.

You can absolutely use toffee you buy at the store. If it comes coated in chocolate, maybe add a little more than listed above. However, if you want to really do it right, you can make your own toffee. I spent a week working out how to make some great easy toffee, and it's delicious.

Toffee Ingredients:

½ cup unsalted butter
1¼ cup sugar
2 tbsp water
1 tbsp corn syrup

Mix everything together in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Once the sugar is dissolved, stop stirring. Using a kitchen brush dipped in water, wash all the undissolved sugar from the inside walls of the saucepan. Those crystals will gunk up the toffee later on if you don't wipe them away. Once the sides are clean, put a candy thermometer into the mixture and let it boil until it reaches about 280 degrees.

While you're waiting for it to reach 280, take a small pan and line it with aluminum foil. Dip a paper towel in some butter and grease the aluminum foil with it. Toffee sticks to everything pretty good, this will help separate it later.

When it reaches 280, it should be a slight golden brownish color. Take it off the heat and immediately, very carefully, pour it out onto the greased pan. It is extremely hot, so be careful not to splash it or touch it in any way. Tap the pan on the counter a few times so it spreads out a bit, then let it cool for 30-45 minutes or until its ok to touch.

Because I was using mine as an ingredient in hot chocolate (and as a topping), I broke it into large pieces, put those pieces into ziplock baggies, and smashed it up as small as I could get it.

So try it out, let me know what you think! And check out The Chocolate Tourist. It's definitely a blog worth following!

Recipe - Homemade Chocolate Syrup

That picture is not hot chocolate. It could easily become hot chocolate, though!

Today's post is about making your own chocolate syrup, which can be used for making both hot chocolate and cold chocolate milk. It's good for tons of things, as I'm sure you know. On top of ice cream, pies, in milkshakes, etc. Me? Well, I like to eat it straight from the bottle!

I'm sure everyone reading this has had Hershey's Chocolate Syrup. Good stuff! But did you ever take a look at the label? I'm not exactly a health nut (I have a blog about chocolate, after all), but once I learned how to make my own chocolate syrup, I had to wonder, what is some of the stuff on the ingredients list of Hershey's syrup?

Take a look.

The first ingredient is high fructose corn syrup. I'm pretty sure I don't need to tell you how bad that is for you. It's not regular corn syrup. It's really bad for you, and it's in so many things today. In fact, here's an article called "5 Reasons HFCS Will Kill You."

Next ingredient is corn syrup, followed by water, cocoa, and sugar. Those make sense. Then it gets crazy.

Potassium sorbate. This is a synthetic preservative. While it does occur naturally in some berries, virtually all of the world's supply is manufactured synthetically.

Salt. You know what that is.

Mono and Diglycerides. These are emulsifying agents. They help keep the product from separating into its individual ingredients and add a little shelf life to it.

Xantham Gum. Another emulsifier. Just like the mono and diglycerides, it's relatively safe to eat, but if you like knowing what you're eating, it's something extra you don't need.

Polysorbate 60. Another emulsifier. Seriously, how many emulsifiers does one product need? I suspect these emulsifiers keep the syrup flowing smoothly, as well.

Vanillin. This is vanilla flavor, basically. It's the chemical in vanilla that makes the vanilla flavor. However, in this product, it's probably synthetically created because it's much cheaper than using real vanilla.

Finally, artificial flavor. As far as I can tell, this is a "chemical mixture that mimics a natural flavor in some way." So yeah, have fun with that.

It's sad that something as simple as chocolate syrup literally has to become a chemistry lesson to learn what's in it. Does it really have to be that complicated? Heck no! In fact, if we take a look at the list of ingredients in Hershey's syrup and keep only the things we understand, it's perfect! Well, let's scratch off the corn syrup, too. We know what that is, it's used a lot in candy making, but we only need one sweetener here.

Chocolate syrup ingredient list:

4 oz hot water
1/2 cup sugar
2/3 cup natural cocoa powder

And, if you want:

Pinch of salt (optional)
1 tsp vanilla (optional)

And you'll need a bottle like the one pictured here.






The best thing about making chocolate syrup yourself is the flavor! You can choose any cocoa powder you want. There are many artisanal chocolate makers out there creating some of the best, tastiest cocoa powders ever. I'm using Scharffen Berger Natural Cocoa Powder.

Interesting that they put the word natural right there on the label. Why would they need to make a distinction from any other cocoa powder? Well, because most cocoa powder is Dutch-processed, or alkalized. To quote Askinosie Chocolate's Facebook page: "Alkalization (also called “Dutch processing”) is a chemical processing of cocoa powder. Chocolate makers do this to create a uniform color and flavor when mixing various origins together and to tame the flavor by reducing the acidity. Unfortunately, this process strips away the complexity of flavor and removes many of the beneficial compounds naturally found in chocolate, not to mention fails to maintain the integrity of the origin, which is one of our main goals as single origin chocolate makers!"

When they mention origin, they mean the cacao bean. Cacao beans from different places around the world and different trees all have different flavors. To artisanal chocolate makers, the origin of the bean is incredibly important! That's what separates them from the mass-market cheap stuff (like the folks who make chocolate syrup loaded with emulsifiers).

Some cocoa powders I would recommend:

Askinosie

Tcho

Varlhona

Scharffen Berger

Ok, let's get to making this stuff already!

Put the water in a pot on medium heat.

In a bowl, mix the cocoa powder and the sugar. Cocoa powder on its own has a tough time blending into water, so mixing it beforehand with the sugar will help a lot.

Once the water is hot, but not boiling, slowly add in the powder mix while you whisk. Keep whisking while the sugar melts and everything dissolves nicely and becomes delicious, amazing chocolate syrup. If you want to add vanilla or a pinch of salt, now would be the time. Don't let the mixture boil, just whisk until it's smooth.

Turn off the heat and let it cool. I like to keep whisking slowly while it cools.

Once it's cool, go ahead and pour it into your dispenser. Or pour some right into some warm milk for a great hot chocolate!

It may thicken or solidify slightly in the bottle, since we've left out all those emulsifiers that keep it smooth and runny. Just pop it in the microwave for 10 seconds and you're good to go.

Or, you could even pour it into a jar instead of a bottle, and simply spoon portions out whenever you want some.

Recipe - Coconut Cinnamon Frozen Hot Chocolate Pops

It's mid-June now, and that means summer is here. It's hot out there, especially here in Los Angeles. Most people, when I mention having a hot chocolate in the summer, look at me oddly and say something like "But it's so hot in summer, I like hot chocolate in the winter". It makes no difference that while they're saying this, they may be holding some scalding hot coffee or tea, probably their third or fourth of the day. People just associate hot chocolate with winter and Christmas. Let's try and change that, ok?

But not today! Today we're going to ask the hot chocolate to cool down a bit for us. Of course, lots of folks love iced coffees and frappuccinos. And yep, there are iced hot chocolates out there, too! I'm going to explore a bunch of them all summer long, starting with some good old fashioned frozen chocolate pops. Taza Chocolate came up with this recipe, using the coconut milk as the base. I switched it around a bit because I didn't have any of their Oaxacan discs handy.

Ingredients are as follows:

1 13.5 oz can of coconut milk
3 oz semi-sweet chocolate (try for 50-70% cacao)
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon

Baker's, you've seen that stuff, right? It's in the baking section of the grocery store. Did you know Baker's was the first producer of chocolate in America? I'll bet you thought it was Hershey's. Nope, Baker's was here before them - over 100 years before them! The Baker's box says 1780, but Dr. James Baker and John Hannon were importing beans and making chocolate in Massachusetts as early as 1764. So don't walk by Baker's thinking it's some off-brand you're afraid to try. It's 12 years older than our country is!

These are the popsicle molds I have. They are great! We usually fill them with lemonade, but today, they will experience the majesty of chocolate.

Turn on your stovetop and get the coconut milk into a pan.

While that's warming up, chop up the chocolate. If you've been following this blog, you know this helps it melt much faster. Always chop the chocolate.

Once the coconut milk is nice and hot, add in the chocolate, the sugar, and the cinnamon. Whisk it around, make sure everything is incorporated nicely and the chocolate melts smoothly.

And taste it! It's really good. Really, really strong, but definitely delicious. If we were going to serve this as a hot drink, maybe we'd tame it down a bit with a cup of milk or something. But we're not, so just let it be its thick, strong, tasty self.

We now have an almost-boiling pot of coconut chocolate drink that we need to put into the freezer. Let's help it cool down first, though. We don't want to melt our popsicle molds.

I set up a little ice bath for it. I filled a large bowl with ice cubes, then put a smaller metal bowl on top and made sure it was sitting level. Then I poured in the warm chocolate and stirred it for maybe 5 or 10 minutes.

Once it was at about room temperature, I filled the popsicle molds.

They have a little fill line marked on the inside. Stick to that! If you're freezing something with water in it, the water expands a little bit. With these chocolate pops, it leaves a little space underneath for dripping.

Throw them in the freezer, and in 8 hours, bust them out and enjoy!

They are so good! Addicting, even! They are still pretty strong, but if you liked fudgsicles growing up, then you will love these! And of course, you can change up the recipe to create any flavor combination you want. Maybe some chili powder mixed in there? I know, I know, "It's summer, it's hot, who would want to add chili into a popsicle..."

Recipe - Maple Hot Chocolate

Truer words were never spoken.

This time, we're adding some maple into the cup with that chocolate we love so much. This is a great variation on a normal, milder hot chocolate. When I first stumbled upon some recipes, I thought it would be way too sweet to be any good. Boy, was I wrong! The chocolate is light, the maple isn't overpowering, and this cup is just plain delicious. It's the kind of hot chocolate that I think of as a breakfast hot chocolate rather than a dessert hot chocolate. In fact, it's one of the few I've made that my girlfriend asked for more of!

Let's get it on!

Here's what we need:

1 cup milk (2% or whole)
1 tbsp water
1 tbsp REAL maple syrup (no corn syrup!)
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp cocoa powder
1 tsp butter
1 tsp vanilla extract










Crazy ingredients list, huh? I know you're wondering "Butter?!" Yep, butter. And I'm serious about the real maple syrup. If it's not 100% real, it's just flavored corn syrup. If you're gonna use that, you may as well just make your hot chocolate from a paper packet.

Real maple syrup not only tastes better, it's better for you. Of course, like any sweetener, you should use it in moderation, but seriously, if you're at the store and you're buying syrup that tastes like the sap of a tree, why not buy the real sap? Save the corn syrup for marshmallows!

And what's that weird box in the ingredients picture? Let me show you!

Polish cocoa powder! I've been coming across many cocoa powders from different countries in the international markets around town, and I've been snapping them up as more interesting options than just the standard American cocoa powders (mainly Hershey's, which I'm betting is what everyone has in their house).

Wawel is Polish chocolate maker, and that artwork on their box is just awesome! Did they put chunks of chocolate on it, or cacao pods? No! They put ancient warships battling on it! Actually, I have no idea if those are warships, or if they're battling, but it's awesome nonetheless.

Add the tablespoon of water into the milk and heat it up. While that's warming, measure out the remaining ingredients. Keep the maple syrup separate from the others - we'll add it last. Once the milk is nice and hot, but not boiling, go ahead and add the brown sugar, cocoa, butter, and vanilla. Whisk it together until there are no clumps of cocoa powder and the butter is completely melted. Then finally, turn off the heat and mix in the maple syrup. Once that's in, you're good to go!

I recently got a few retro hot cocoa branded mugs from ebay, so you'll be seeing them pop up on here, regardless of what hot chocolate I'm pouring into them. This Carnation one is filled with maritime battle-worthy cocoa powder and the blood of trees! Try it out, let me know what you think!

Recipe - Honey Lavender Hot Chocolate

Check out this picture:

Those are lavender buds in milk. That's crazy! Flowers in milk! When I first came across some recipes with lavender buds, I thought it sounded weird. I'd never had lavender buds in anything. Would the hot chocolate taste like soap? Only one way to find out - make it! So I did just that, and it's awesome. I made it a bit more awesome by throwing some honey into the mix (you can't have too much awesome!). It's like a clear summer day filtered down into a delicious hot chocolate, and you're going to love it.

It's not completely unheard of to have lavender in chocolate. Dagoba makes a bar, and a quick google search of "lavender chocolate" brings up a bunch more.

Let's take a look at what we need.

1 1/2 cups milk (2% or whole)

1 heaping tbsp dark chocolate

1 heaping tbsp milk chocolate

1 tbsp honey

1/4 tsp lavender

The two different types of chocolate are going to bring different flavors to the drink. For the dark, I'm using 70% Scharffen Berger, and for the milk, some regular Hershey's. The dark brings the strong chocolate flavor, and the milk chocolate adds in a little creaminess and sweetness to it.

The lavender buds are just little closed-up dried flower buds. As soon as you open the package, you'll smell them. Strong stuff! I'm using a brand I found at a local Whole Foods market.

The honey I'm using is all natural and from a local farmer's market. It's made by Harry's Honey, and you can learn about Harry here.

Put the milk on the stove, medium heat, and throw in the lavender. Whisk it around, so the lavender really gets mixed in there. Bring the milk to a simmer, stirring constantly so it doesn't scald.

Once it's simmering and steaming, move it off the heat and let it sit for five minutes. This is called steeping, and it lets the warm milk become even more infused with the flavor of the lavender. Five full minutes, no cheating! Maybe even a little more if you want.

While it's steeping, let's make some garnish, shall we? How about some strong vanilla whipped cream? It's quick, easy, and compliments this hot chocolate perfectly. I covered how to make homemade whipped cream back in my posting about peanut butter cup hot chocolate, and it's basically the same process here. Except, obviously, don't use peanut butter in this one. I added 1/2 tsp of Ojio ground vanilla bean and a 1/4 tsp of vanilla extract. And sugar, of course.

You can see the vanilla bean in it! So much vanilla flavor! It's delicious!

Ok, so the milk has steeped with the lavender, let's get back to it. We have to strain out the lavender buds now that we've infused the milk with their flavor. I set up a strainer over a bowl, like this:

Just pour the milk through it, make sure there's no stray lavender in the pot, and then pour the strained milk back into the pot.

It probably cooled a bit while it steeped, so go ahead and turn the heat back on. Once it's just about simmering again, add in the chocolates and whisk until melted completely. Turn off the heat and finally, add in the honey. Once that's incorporated fully, you are good to go. Fill up a mug, top with our vanilla whipped cream, and enjoy!

Even if you don't think you're a big fan of flowers or flowery scents, give this one a try. When you're drinking it, it doesn't come across as flowery or soapy in any way, just relaxing. I guess that's why they use lavender in soaps to begin with, right, because it's so soothing and relaxing? Well, that same concept carries over to hot chocolate, too.

Next post, I'll contrast the relaxing lavender by doing a garlic hot chocolate!

(Just kidding, that's probably disgusting.)

Recipe - Peanut Butter Cup Hot Chocolate

Everyone likes peanut butter cups, right? This hot chocolate is going to blow you away!

So how do we capture that flavor in a hot chocolate? Milk or dark chocolate? Is there a difference in flavor between the peanut butter inside a peanut butter cup and peanut butter from a jar? In a peanut butter cup, there are two separate flavors that only come together when you begin to eat it. How can we get the same two distinct flavors in a hot chocolate?

I think the trick that solved it for me was cutting down the amount of chocolate used. I originally was making a basic hot chocolate and simply adding in peanut butter. It always tasted burnt, or just way too dark and rich. To solve it, I tried it using both milk and water. I tried adding different sweeteners, but it quickly became overly sweet. Then it dawned on me that perhaps there's just too much chocolate flavor happening. I needed a better balance of the two, which meant removing some chocolate.

I guess the Reese's people figured this out ages ago, hahahaha!

For this one, I'm using Hershey's chocolate. It's easily accessible to just about everyone. We'll use their regular milk chocolate bar, but we'll balance out the sweetness by adding in a bit of cocoa powder. (Cocoa powder is bitter, as it has no sweeteners. I'll go over cocoa powder in detail in a future post.)

There's also a few great garnishes we're going to put on this one! Let's do the garnish first.

We're going to make peanut butter whipped cream!

8 oz heavy whipping cream
1 Tbs sugar
1 Tbs peanut butter
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

You also may want to pick up:

1/2 tsp chopped nuts
Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Minis








Using a mixer, whip the heavy whipping cream on high for a while, until it becomes less liquid and a bit bigger in volume. Add in the sugar and vanilla extract, and continue whipping until it begins to become fluffy. Then add in the peanut butter and whip a little bit more. 

It will be a little heavier than your average whipped topping because of the peanut butter. But taste it - WOW! Awesome, huh? 

Put this into a container with a lid and put it in the fridge while you make the hot chocolate.



Ok, here's what you need for the hot chocolate:

1 cup 2% or whole milk
3 Tbs Hershey's Milk chocolate, chopped
1 Tbs cocoa powder
1 Tbs peanut butter (preferably something natural)

Chop that chocolate up good! The smaller you chop it, the faster it melts.

Put the milk in a pot over medium heat. Bring it to just about a boil. You'll see bubbles appearing around the edges as it gets hotter. Don't let it boil, though! Just get it as close as possible. I keep mixing the milk as it warms so it heats evenly.

Once it's just about boiling, remove from heat and add in the chopped chocolate and the cocoa powder. Whisk these until the chocolate is melted and the mixture is smooth and creamy. Then add the peanut butter and continue to whisk. At this point, I usually move the pot back onto the warm burner, just to make sure it stays nice and hot.

Pour it carefully into a mug. You can either spoon on the peanut butter whipped cream, or you can put it into a baggie, snip a bottom corner off the baggie, and use that to apply it, as if you were icing a cake. The whipped cream is going to melt fast! Add on the mini peanut butter cups and some of the chopped nuts, and then brace yourself for an amazing hot chocolate!

This one is so good, it's like a dessert all by itself! I did a bunch of variations while working through the different recipes. While I was doing it, I wondered if maybe coming up with just a hot peanut butter drink recipe would be fun. What do you think?

You should be able to find Hershey's chocolates almost anywhere, from grocery stores to your nearest 7-11. If you can't find the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Mini's, you could always just get the regular size cups and chop them up into pieces.