Hot Chocolate: How to make it perfect!
Hot chocolate is an essential pleasure in the cold seasons: more satisfying than a hot tea, more tempting than a herbal tea, it is a treat to indulge in to lift your body and spirit. Let’s see how it is prepared, how it is flavored and how to decorate it.
Hot chocolate is much more than a simple drink: it is a comfort food, an enveloping pleasure, a warm cuddle inside a cup to grasp greedily in your hands. Hardly anyone would be able to resist this delicious and steaming chocolate-based drink: it is no coincidence that it is loved all over the world. But how to make it at home in a satisfactory way?
In this guide we give you all the useful tips, from which ingredients to use to how to flavor it and how to store it in the rare case that it ends up. Watch the video to follow the few but fundamental steps to give it to yourself in just a few steps.
How to make hot chocolate
Start by placing 250g milk in a saucepan over medium heat. Add 70 g of dark chocolate pieces, 12 g of bitter cocoa powder, 10 g of sugar. Heat, stirring with a whisk, until the ingredients have all melted and the mixture begins to simmer. Only at this point add 10 g of corn starch. Mix well to melt this too and, once the consistency of the hot chocolate has thickened, transfer it into a cup and enjoy it. Sip it as it is or flavor/garnish it as desired as we suggest in the next paragraphs.
How to flavor hot chocolate
If it is excellent in its classic version, nothing prevents you from experimenting with the numerous variations that can be obtained simply by adding spices or flavourings. Starting with vanilla extract, one of the most common additions capable of giving it a touch of sweetness and an unmistakable scent. There are those who love it flavored with cinnamon. A pinch of the ground one can give it a warm aroma, typical of the autumn season.
Many more lovers of chilli hot chocolate than you can imagine : try adding a pinch to make the drink livelier. Naturally, the more delicious variations cannot be missing, those that we could define as food porn: try enriching it with a spoonful of hazelnut or almond cream: you will ask for an encore.
How to decorate hot chocolate
In addition to the inseparable whipped cream , you can decorate the hot chocolate with a sprinkling of grated chocolate on the surface, with a layer of icing sugar (which also gives it a more elegant appearance) or with a spiral of melted caramel on the edge of the cup. Some rapé coconut dropped on the surface will make it even more intriguing. There are those who don’t miss marshmallows, small or large, to melt inside.
What to eat hot chocolate with
If you want to offer it as an accompanying drink, you could enjoy it in the afternoon together with tea biscuits, cat’s tongues or biscuits. Or, you can serve it together with fresh seasonal fruit cut into pieces, which you could dip into the cup with toothpicks. Again, you can serve it together with a slice of cake, churros or candy canes typical of the Christmas period.
How to store hot chocolate
If you made more than you could drink, know that the hot chocolate can be stored in the fridge in an airtight container, but only after it has completely cooled. Alternatively, you could leave it in the cup and stick some cling film on top. Before drinking it, heat it slowly on the stove or in the microwave. If you want you can also freeze it, perhaps already portioned so as to defrost only the quantity you need, to avoid waste.
