Hot Chocolate

Hot Chocolate is a great place to start your cooking career.

Ingredients

Milk

Drinking Chocolate

Why drinking chocolate and not cocoa?  When cocoa beans are processed,  the fatty parts are called cocoa butter,  which is used to make chocolate.  The non fatty parts are called cocoa powder.   Drinking chocolate is cocoa powder with things added to it,  such as sugar and milk powder.  It does not go lumpy when you sprinkle it on the milk and so is easier to cook with than cocoa powder.)

Marshmallows  (if you like them!)

Equipment

A saucepan
A wooden spoon  (why wooden?   You will be stirring hot liquids and wooden spoons don’t get hot while you are using them).
A teaspoon!

How to make your Hot Chocolate:

1.  For each person,  measure out three quarters of a mug or cup of milk and pour into a pan.

2.  Put the pan on the hob.  Choose the ring that is either the same size or smaller that the bottom of your pan.

3.  Switch on the hob so it is on a medium heat – you want to slowly warm the milk up.  If you heat it up too fast,  parts of the milk will get too hot and burn.     When milk gets too hot and starts to boil,  the taste of the milk changes.  For this recipe,  you don’t want to boil the milk.

4.  While the milk is heating up,  sprinkle a teaspoon of hot chocolate powder for each person over the top of the milk and stir with a wooden spoon.

5.  It won’t take long,  so keep slowly stirring the milk and after two or three minutes take a small spoonful of milk and carefully test it.  Is it the right temperature for drinking?   You decide. 

6.  When you are tasting the milk to see if it is hot enough,  also think whether it is chocolatey enough.  Do you need a bit more drinking chocolate powder?  If so,  sprinkle an extra spoonful on the top, stir it in and then test again.   You are the cook,  you decide!

8.  If you are using marshmallows,  put the marshmallows in the cups BEFORE you pour the milk into the cups.   This means that the marshmallows go a little bit gooey.

7.   Carefully pour the milk into the cups.   Your hot chocolate is ready to drink.

Hot Chocolate goes really well with Homemade Shortbread