I love hot chocolate. A warm fireplace, snow outside, a hike through the chilly autumn woods, all require hot chocolate as far as I am concerned.
There's a problem, I love the convenience and taste of instant hot chocolate, but they all contain trace amounts of trans fat. I'm not going to get into my trans fat rant now, but if for starters look here, here, and for a nice unbiased view, here. The point is, there are a bunch of foods like hot cocoa that say they have 0 trans fat, but actually don't. I don't like that, so I'm avoiding those foods.
So, for a while I was just making my own hot cocoa. It's not that hard; you boil some water with cocoa, add some milk, sugar, etc., etc., and in 15-20 minutes you're done.
But that's 15-20minutes. Do you know how long it takes me to make instant hot cocoa? At work, where we have a hot water dispenser, it's on the order of 1 minute. A savings of 19 possible minutes. That's enough time for an Arrested Develpment episode. Consequently, my hot cocoa consumption has dramatically decreased.
But no longer. In a stroke of genius, I mixed together all of the ingredients of my favorite hot cocoa (a la Cook's Illustrated), and added DRY MILK! You should have this on hand already if you're a bread maker (it makes for a nice, soft crumb in certain types of bread). You add enough dry milk to make up the recipe, omit the vanilla (I'm still trying to figure out how to get this back in) and you have a very good, very cheap hot cocoa mix. Put it in a plastic bag (I even mixed it in the bag) and add a label: JUST ADD WATER!
Hot Cocoa Mix
Makes 4-1 cup servings
6 tablespoons Dutch-processed cocoa
4 heaping tablespoons sugar
Small pinch salt
1 cup dry milk (I used nonfat, it was still good)
1. Mix in plastic bag and shake. Really people, it doesn't get any easier.
2. Use ~4 Tbs mix for each cup of hot water.
That's it. All done. The best part: You can make your own flavored cocoa. Just add any dry ingredients. I'd like to make one with cinnamon and ancho chile pepper; my mouth is watering just thinking about it. How about very finely crushed candy canes for peppermint? Does it get any more Christmas?
I would absolutely love to hear peoples' other flavor ideas, as well as a way to get the vanilla back in. The only two ways I can think of is making flavored sugar (which seems overly complicated), or crushed tic-tacs (which I don't think would taste very good).
(Picture courtesy of Wikipedia.)
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8 comments:
a thouht on the vanilla-how 'bout dry vanilla pudding ? not instant, it would set up too quickly. just a little may go a long way. you may have to adjust the sugar content but it may also add a little creaminess to the mixture. haven't tried it but you might want to add a little to one cup and see how it turns out,
How about vanilla sugar? Ground up vanilla beans mixed up with sugar. Ask Jeshica about this stuff.
Next in the order of decreasing levels of natural goodness, I also ran across vanilla powder, more vanilla powder and vanilla crystal powder.
I like the dry vanilla pudding suggestion, as long as it doesn't have the trans fats you're trying to avoid. I saw it on a French vanilla coffee mix recipe on the intertubes.
I like the vanilla sugar idea.
The pudding is a good idea as well (as long as we check the ingredients). It might not work for the veg-heads if it has any gelatin. Also, I would be worried that it would make the cocoa a VANILLA cocoa, when I just want cocoa, with a hint of vanilla for balance.
For those who are not vegetarian, it might be a great way to increase creaminess without increasing the fat much, as anonymous (a friendly visitor?) said.
Any more cool ideas for flavors? Can we get liquor flavoring in there, or will I just need to bring some Grand Marnier to work?
Mmm, vanilla sugar. Lisa gave me a jar a while back and it was delicious. A bit hard to find though. I think you'd make your own just by scraping a vanilla bean, which is pretty dry to start with, and one bean could probably flavor a LOT of cocoa.
I am partial to cinnamon in my hot cocoa myself.
I wonder if you could grind up some dried orange peel enough to incorporate into the dry powder to get a nice orange hot cocoa.
perhaps you could also use a teabag filter to individually package cocao servings with other flavors. The cocoa and other powdered ingredients would filter through, but any solid flavorings would remain separate.
With this you could use the orange peel without grinding, or even things like star anise (for a nice licorice-y cocoa. Or even a straight vanilla bean, or nutmeg. What about cloves, for a spicier cocoa?
just some ideas...
Lars the Frothy,
I have known you for 25 years, and I think this teabag idea is the best idea you have ever had (at least top ten).
You could even keep the flavorings separate from the cocoa! You could call them flavor packets! In addition, you could use them for instant cocoa, even if you don't feel like making this kind, or for traditional cocoa. Or even tea and coffee.
Vanilla beans and orange peels! Mint leaves! Orange peels soaked in rum! Cinnamon sticks, anise, cardammom!
Very nice indeed.
Nuts!!! :)
I recently saw a tip online about using coffee filters gathered with thread/string as teabags, if you're in a pinch to find teabag filters.
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