Homemade Hot Chocolate Recipe (With Real Chocolate) (2024)

FAQs

What to add to hot chocolate to make it better? ›

A quick and easy way to add flavor to your hot chocolate is by adding a splash of your favorite extract. Coconut and almond extracts lend hot chocolate an Almond Joy-like taste, while vanilla adds dimension to the chocolate flavor. Peppermint extract instantly gives the drink a holiday flair.

Unsweetened cocoa powder: a high-quality cocoa powder or cacao powder is essential. I highly recommend using Ghirardelli's 100% cocoa. I think it has the best flavor for hot chocolate (and trust me, I've tried quite a few!)

Hot chocolate, also known as hot cocoa or drinking chocolate, is a heated drink consisting of shaved or melted chocolate or cocoa powder, heated milk or water, and usually a sweetener. It is often garnished with whipped cream or marshmallows.

In terms of ranking, we agreed that the cocoa made with milk provided an ultra-smooth experience and was our favorite. However, we were pleasantly surprised by how much we enjoyed the water-based cocoa. While it wasn't as creamy as the milk, it had its benefits.

Creamy, smooth & rich - the signature Hot Chocolate is made with pure dark chocolate, fresh cream and milk. It's not 'hot cocoa', but 'hot chocolate' and feels like a warm hug in a cup!

Cornflour/Cornstarch: Mix a small amount with cold milk or water to create a smooth paste. Whisk this into your hot chocolate towards the end of the cooking process until it thickens. Double Cream: Stirring in a splash of double cream can instantly enrich and thicken your drink, giving it a velvety texture.

Some pastry chefs and professional bakers prefer the mild flavor of Dutch-process cocoas in baked desserts—it's the variety we use most often in our recipes—while others point to the bolder, almost fruity flavor that comes from natural, non-alkalized powder.

Use dark chocolate: Dark chocolate contains less sugar and more antioxidants than milk chocolate, making it a healthier option for hot chocolate. You can also use cocoa powder instead of chocolate syrup to reduce the sugar content even further.

How is 100% chocolate made? ›

Image by Bean To Bar World. Cacao, the seed of the cacao fruit is what we use to make chocolate. 100% chocolate is essentially these seeds ground up and refined into chocolate, with no other ingredients added.

There are a number of steps to making chocolate: sorting the beans, roasting them, cracking and winnowing them, grinding the beans into a thick liquid and adding sugar, and tempering the final product.

Hot Chocolate is made using solid chocolate melted in warm milk or cream. Hot Cocoa, however, is made from a powdered base of cocoa with added sugar and dissolved in hot water or hot milk.

Ingredients: Hot chocolate gets its deep, chocolatey flavor from the base of thick, melted chocolate. Warm liquids like water, milk, or cream are added to make the drink liquid. Hot cocoa, however, is made from a powdered base of cocoa, sugar, and added flavorings.

To be honest there isn't much of a difference besides temperature as chocolate milk can be warmed and called hot chocolate. However, hot chocolate is usually richer and often prepared with real cocoa powder and melted chocolate while chocolate milk is often just regular milk with added chocolate syrup.

Although hot chocolate doesn't necessarily need an even more creamy, decadent taste, using milk certainly enriches the experience. We suspect that milk adds a creamier taste than water alone, and when combined with the notes of chocolate, the smooth undertones of the milk simply add a delicious backdrop.