Review - Tea Room Holiday Chai Nog

The holiday season is here again. It seems to arrive faster every year! And thankfully, the holiday season always brings out the best in hot chocolates from chocolate makers all over the world.

I've know about The Tea Room chocolates for a while now. They make an amazing variety of high quality bars, most of which are infused with tea flavors. Things like milk chocolate with honeybush caramel tea and dark chocolate with raspberry rooibos tea.

A couple months ago I learned they made some drinking chocolates. And not only do they offer 13 great flavor combinations, but they also offer 3 additional holiday flavors.

I picked up a canister of their Holiday Chai Nog. It's a white hot chocolate infused with the flavors of black tea, cardamom, cinnamon, pepper, and clove.

Great packaging! Colorful and intricate, very fancy looking.


I love how, right there on the main description page for their drinking chocolate selection, they tell you straight up - "This is not cocoa, it's PREMIUM ORGANIC CHOCOLATE". That's become my mantra since starting this blog. There's a huge difference between hot cocoa and hot chocolate. If you're still drinking cocoa from a packet, please proceed directly to my first posted recipe and have your life changed.

The shaved chocolate looks great, and the smell is just unbelievably comforting! It's the aromatic equivalent of being wrapped in a blanket in front of a fireplace on Christmas Eve! They use all organic ingredients, and I don't mean just the chocolate and tea. Even the spices are organic. And bonus - everything they do is non-GMO and gluten-free.

Included in the tin are instructions for a couple different ways to make the drink. Curiously, they lump both water and milk based recipes together as "European Style". Then they seem to correct themselves and follow up with "Water is classic European". I've been in the mood for creamier hot chocolates lately, so I chose to use half and half, as directed in their "Rich Hot Chocolate" instructions.

The amount of chocolate mix to add is also open to your personal taste, as they recommend 1-3 tablespoons. I like mine as flavorful as I can get it, but I also wanted to review it fairly using their provided instructions. I went ahead and used 3 tablespoons.

Definitely a top notch white hot chocolate, and very much in the spirit of the holidays. I found it to taste like a very light pumpkin spice white hot chocolate, with hints of cinnamon and nutmeg. Very delicious and very much recommended!

Although it says "nog" in the name of the hot chocolate, I didn't get much of an eggnog flavor. (This led me to research what exactly "nog" means, and apparently it's not well defined.)

I've not seen The Tea Room hot chocolates in any stores, but ordering from their site was extremely easy and fast. I will also definitely be checking out more of their flavors, and I'll report back here when I do.

Have a great holiday season!

Recipe - Gingerbread Hot Chocolate

December, finally! It's the time of year when everyone pays attention to hot chocolate! While I continue on in my effort to make hot chocolate accepted as a year-round beverage, I can't help but get a little extra excited about this time of year. I've got some absolutely amazing hot chocolates lined up for the next few weeks, with flavors that are distinctly in the holiday spirit.

And the first one is gingerbread. Gingerbread houses, gingerbread man cookies... Mmm... Gingerbread just has that flavor that stirs up wonderful memories from when I was a kid.

Capturing the gingerbread flavor was an interesting and fun process. I researched what spices and flavors actually create that specific flavor of gingerbread cookies. Once I had it, finding the right combination with the right amount of chocolate took over five tries. My earliest attempts were far too strong!

The picture above shows the basics of the gingerbread flavor. Pumpkin pie spice and clove, along with molasses. Pumpkin pie spice is simply a blend of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and allspice. That's a lot of spices for a cup of hot chocolate! You'll see, it's totally worth it.

All ingredients are as follows:

1½ cup 1% milk
2 tbsp chopped 85% dark chocolate
1 tbsp molasses
1½ tbsp brown sugar
¼ tsp pumpkin pie spice
⅛ tsp ground clove




Alternatively, you could use 1 cup of half & half and ½ cup of milk for a very thick, creamy version of this recipe. I tend to like the thinner version of this one.

I'm using Lindt chocolate here. We need a strong, very dark chocolate to counter all the sweetness of the brown sugar and molasses. 85% works great, and I'm sure an 80% or 90% would be fine, as well. I'd steer clear of going under 75%, though. Or if you do, cut back on the amount of brown sugar proportionally. You'll have to do some taste tests to find the right balance.

Molasses is a very interesting product. I didn't know where it came from until I bought some to use in recipes for this blog and researched it. It is the by-product of processed sugar. When sugar cane is boiled to create crystals, those crystals become table sugar as we know it. What's left behind is molasses. Well, actually it's called cane molasses. Once you boil it two more times, continually refining more sugar out of it, you end up with blackstrap molasses. Blackstrap molasses is actually good for you! It's filled with calcium, magnesium, potassium, and iron, and one tablespoon provides 20% of your daily value of those nutrients. Awesome, huh?

On that same note, brown sugar is simply sugar that hasn't been refined enough to be table sugar. The brown color is a result of there still being a bit of molasses left in it. In this recipe, you could use regular sugar, but using brown sugar just enhances that molasses flavor a little.

Put the milk on the stove over medium heat. Once it's warm to the touch, add in the spices and the brown sugar. Let it get to just about boiling, then add in the chocolate. Once the chocolate is melted and incorporated, turn off the heat and add the molasses. Keep whisking it for a minute or so to be sure it's blended perfectly.

Pour and serve. Amazing, right? This is truly a great holiday hot chocolate. I'd advise against serving it with gingerbread cookies, as together, it could be a bit overwhelming. Try something milder, like speculoos or shortbread cookies.

And don't forget, December 13th is National Hot Cocoa Day! Celebrate it by not  dumping a packet of cocoa powder and powdered milk into a cup of hot water, but by making a real, delicious, perfect cup of real hot chocolate.

Recipe - Pumpkin Spice Hot Chocolate

It's mid-October, and that makes it officially Fall. This is when the general population begins to really take notice of hot chocolate. So, let's step up the game a bit and make a perfect cup o' cocoa for Halloween and Thanksgiving: some pumpkin spice hot chocolate!

We're using all real ingredients, and we're going to make some amazing, perfect whipped cream again, but this time, instead of whipping it with electric beaters, I've got a new kitchen toy - a refillable whipped cream dispenser. If you don't have one, of course you can always do it with beaters or a whisk. But if you've got a little extra money and you make whipped cream a lot, it's worth it!

Let's make the whipped cream first, so it can chill while we make the hot chocolate.

Let's grab the usual ingredients for some whipped cream:

1 pint heavy whipping cream
2 tbsp powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

In the photo, you can see the dispenser. You also have to buy little carbon dioxide canisters with it. That's what pressurizes it once you pour the cream into the canister.






First we have to make sure the ingredients are mixed thoroughly before filling the canister, so pour the cream, sugar, and vanilla into a bowl and whisk it together for a few minutes, until it looks like the sugar is mostly dissolved.

Pour it into the dispenser and screw on the lid. Now we have to pressurize it. Be sure to follow the instructions that came with your dispenser carefully. The first time we made a batch here, it didn't pressurize correctly and always came sputtering out every time we tried to use it.

On the dispenser I have, the little CO2 can goes into a plastic holder, and then that holder is screwed into the lid of the dispenser. As you're tightening it, you can hear the carbon dioxide spray into the dispenser.













That's it! Whipped cream is done! Shake it up lightly and give it a test, holding it upside while you spray. I do it over the sink, because usually that first bit is still liquid. After a spray or two, you should have perfect whipped cream!

Put that in the fridge so it stays nice and cool. Next we're going to gather up the ingredients for this amazing pumpkin spice hot chocolate.

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cups milk (2% or whole)
2 tbsp dark chocolate
1 tsp powdered sugar
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1 tsp ground vanilla (or vanilla extract)
2 tbsp pumpkin puree











Real pumpkin puree, no fake pumpkin flavor here! And as always, the chocolate you choose will have a huge effect on the flavor. Anything dark (over 60%) should be okay, but when it's close to done, feel free to taste it and add more sugar if you'd like.

I'm using ground vanilla rather than vanilla extract in mine. I like this flavor a little better; it feels a little more pure to me because it's not extracted with alcohol. But vanilla extract works just fine, too, so use what you have.

I'm using a really good chocolate, Varlhona Caraibe 66%. Varlhona makes an amazing variety of chocolates, and many bakers and confectioners use their chocolate in their own candy creations. You can get Varlhona bars at most Trader Joe's, but for the baking portions, look for a restaurant supply store near your house. In Culver City here in Los Angeles, there's a great store called Surfas. That's where I got mine.

It comes in these great little bean sized bits that are perfect for measuring out for baking. However, for easier melting, I prefer to chop up the chocolate even smaller, and that calls for another kitchen toy, my little Oxo Chopper.

This gadget makes chopping almost anything really quick and easy! It's got a whole line of blades, and they rotate a few degrees every time they come down. Really slick! Kind of a pain to clean, though.

You should be heating the milk while chopping the chocolate. Once the milk is just about boiling, go ahead and add in the chocolate, whisking it around so it can start melting. Once it's melted, add in the rest of these amazing ingredients. Take the time to smell it! It's wonderful!

Pour it into a large mug, then carefully spray some of that awesome whipped cream on top. There's probably no better mug of hot chocolate for Fall than this one. Sit back and relax, put on a scary movie or a football game, and enjoy it.