Some like it hot

You will usually find me drinking hot chocolate on wet autumn afternoons or at night in the dead of winter. While many of our early spring days have been sunny, the nights have still been cold. And I have been having the odd hot chocolate now and again.
This first hot chocolate recipe, that I call 'everyday' hot chocolate is the one that I make for my children for afternoon tea on cold, wet days. It is not something that we drink 'everyday'. It is just a simple homemade hot chocolate. There is nothing better at the end of a freezing cold school day than coming home to a special treat of hot chocolate and butter biscuits. It makes a nice change to fruit or a smoothie.

It is, perhaps lucky, that we live in Queensland and don't have long cold winters. I do think is it possible to have too much of a good thing.
 
Hot Chocolate
(everyday hot chocolate)

serves 2

• 400 ml milk
• 75 grams dark chocolate (not 70 percent) - broken into small pieces
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

to serve

• mini marshmallows
• whipped cream (optional)
• grated chocolate (optional)

Heat the milk in a small saucepan until almost boiling. Do not boil. Stir through the chocolate and continue to stir, until melted and well combined. Stir through the vanilla extract. Pour into serving mugs and top with marshmallows. Serve and enjoy.

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We made this second hot chocolate recipe for the first time this year. It has been adapted from this gorgeous little book that the children got as a Easter gift. On our first cold wet winters day I thought I would give this new recipe a try. Ooh la la! I thought I had died and gone to Paris. This hot chocolate is indulgent and heavenly. One to share with special friends on a cold winter weekend.

I have called it French Hot Chocolate as it looks like the luscious hot chocolate that is served in the film "Chocolat"

French Hot Chocolate

serves 2

• 3/4 cup double cream
• 3/4 cup milk
• 150 grams dark chocolate (not 70 percent) - broken into small pieces

Heat the cream and milk in a small saucepan until almost boiling. Do not boil. Stir through the chocolate and continue to stir, until melted and well combined. Serve and enjoy.

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My husband doesn't like hot chocolate, who can believe that! So on cold winter nights I find myself settling down on the couch with a dvd and enjoying this treat alone. Obviously for grown-ups because of the coffee and alcohol, it is another good one to make when you have grown-up friends around.

Grown-up Hot Chocolate
(mummy's hot chocolate)

serves 2

• 400 ml milk
• 75 grams dark chocolate (not 70 percent) - broken into small pieces
• 1 1/2 teaspoon instant coffee
• 2 tablespoon kahlua or brandy

to serve 

• whipped cream
• ground cinnamon

Heat the milk in a small saucepan until almost boiling. Do not boil. Stir through the chocolate and coffee and continue to stir, until melted and well combined. Add the kahlua. Pour into serving mugs and top with whipped cream and cinnamon. Serve and enjoy. 

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