Two-Ounce Hot Chocolate
I had an itch to craft a two-ounce decadent hot chocolate and I got it done a few days ago. I've been enjoying hot chocolate frequently lately, a particularly lush, decadent one and I realised my craving is almost always satisfied in the first two sips. After that, I'm effectively left with an entire meal to finish, which isn't exactly what I have in mind when I'm wanting hot chocolate. I decided to tackle two tasks at once: design a decadent hot chocolate I can enjoy at home and resolve the issue of serving size. When drinking coffee, I most often enjoy recipes that produce 2-4 oz, so a 2-oz Hot Chocolate sounded just right.
10 June 2024
The intention for a 'decadent' hot chocolate was something that essentially felt as if you were drinking chocolate. Not a warm drink that has a chocolate flavour, but one that is almost like biting into a softened bar of chocolate, except as a drink. Molten chocolate lightened with milk is probably the idea.
To begin this, I melted a fraction of a chocolate bar in my espresso cup. The bar is a 72% Salted Chocolate with chopped almonds. I used 3 of its units. The bowl is about 3/4 of the way filled with boiled water.
As the chocolate softened, I began breaking it up and stirring. This took about 7 minutes in total.
[14:37–14:43]
For the milk, I heated one ounce of Unsweetened Organic Soymilk and one ounce of a plant-based heavy whipping cream until the mixture was steaming.
Then I just had to add and stir.
[14:50–14:52]
I also opted for a half tsp of agave.
Complete.
[15:00–15:02]
It was perfect, pretty precisely as I'd imagined. For another cup, I could do with 1 or 2 fewer pieces of chocolate. I also may create more servings at a time in future so I can use a foamer or hand blender to form a more homogenous mixture. That said, I didn't too much mind snacking on the remaining molten chocolate at the bottom.
I liked the salted chocolate in this. I've thought, I could try variations with different chocolate bars and produce a line of hot chocolates with different flavours and compositions. That should be interesting.