Hot Chocolate

Brown Sugar Kitchen

This is a true hot chocolate, though the recipe also adds cocoa powder for extra chocolate flavor. It's rich and thick, with a hint of vanilla and cinnamon; a decadent treat that could be dessert all on its own. (Add some posh marshmallows for the kids, or a splash of your favorite liqueur for adults, and it would be even better.)

You can easily make this ahead and reheat it before serving, so don't let the extra steeping time scare you away. It's SO much better than a packet mix!

Captions

[00:00]: [Music]
[00:04]: hello and welcome to cooking the books
[00:06]: with Heather today it is chilly it is
[00:10]: rainy it is definitely fall here in
[00:13]: North Carolina heading towards winter
[00:15]: and
[00:17]: um
[00:18]: I decided I was going to make some hot
[00:20]: chocolate for my family so today we're
[00:22]: going to make hot chocolate from uh the
[00:25]: Brown Sugar Kitchen Cookbook by Tanya
[00:27]: Holland this will serve eight so we will
[00:30]: have some left over and you can make it
[00:33]: ahead refrigerate it in an air airtight
[00:35]: container for up to a week so we'll have
[00:38]: hot chocolate again sometime soon
[00:41]: we're gonna start here but most of the
[00:43]: cooking is actually going to be on the
[00:45]: stove obviously but
[00:49]: I'm going to put together the first part
[00:51]: of the mixture here
[00:53]: and we have milk this is supposed to be
[00:56]: whole milk we do not have any whole milk
[00:59]: I've got mostly two percent with some
[01:04]: um
[01:05]: half and half added not a lot just
[01:07]: because I didn't want to open another
[01:11]: think of milk
[01:14]: um because I didn't worry about it too
[01:16]: much because there's a lot of heavy
[01:18]: cream in here so it's it's going to be
[01:21]: creamy enough I think I'm not too
[01:24]: concerned
[01:25]: so there we go
[01:28]: that is all of our liquid
[01:32]: there's actually nothing on my finger
[01:34]: um
[01:35]: and to this we are going to add
[01:38]: uh some sugar
[01:41]: this is just plain
[01:43]: granulated sugar and not a whole lot of
[01:45]: it either
[01:46]: and we're going to add a cinnamon stick
[01:51]: and we have a vanilla bean pod which I
[01:56]: think I've done this before but I'm
[01:57]: going to go ahead and split
[01:60]: on my cutting board and use my knife to
[02:04]: scrape out
[02:07]: the seeds
[02:10]: put those in here
[02:17]: to the other side there we go
[02:24]: and then we're just going to put a pod
[02:26]: in here too
[02:28]: um so now we're going to take this over
[02:31]: here we're going to bring it to a boil
[02:34]: uh
[02:35]: and then we're gonna add some more stuff
[02:37]: so we'll bring you over there in just a
[02:39]: second
[02:43]: so in about five minutes we're getting a
[02:44]: few both popping around the edge I have
[02:47]: it on medium high heat on my stove
[02:49]: um but I would not call this a boil yet
[02:51]: so we're just waiting for it to boil yes
[02:53]: we want to be very careful and watch
[02:55]: this because milk will boil over very
[02:59]: quickly
[03:00]: definitely seeing some bubbles popping
[03:03]: so I think we're just about there
[03:08]: it's hard with milk
[03:10]: it's really hard you don't want it to
[03:11]: burn on the pan
[03:15]: but you want to be warm enough to melt
[03:17]: chocolate and everything that we're
[03:18]: about to put in
[03:20]: okay I'm gonna call this a boil I do not
[03:22]: want it to boil over and it is getting
[03:24]: faster and faster so now I'm going to
[03:26]: turn it down
[03:27]: to a simmer
[03:31]: so a few more stick with two on my stove
[03:33]: and we're going to whisk in we have some
[03:37]: cocoa powder
[03:38]: cocoa powder won't mix into cold
[03:41]: liquid just FYI that's why probably why
[03:45]: we wait until after it's boiled
[03:48]: for that
[03:50]: this is um
[03:52]: from Trader Joe's
[03:54]: nothing super special
[03:58]: and then
[03:60]: some chopped chocolate I just decided to
[04:02]: go with bittersweet she does say I
[04:05]: decided to go with
[04:07]: um
[04:08]: these Ghirardelli chips they're
[04:12]: Bittersweet and I didn't have to chop
[04:14]: chocolate because chopping oh that's hot
[04:16]: chopping chocolate is super messy
[04:20]: and this is also super messy so now with
[04:23]: it on a simmer we're gonna try to get
[04:25]: all of that chocolate melted
[04:29]: and that um
[04:31]: cocoa mixed in
[04:44]: with a whisk this is a lot of hot
[04:47]: chocolate
[04:48]: way more than we need for today but the
[04:50]: kids will be absolutely happy to have
[04:53]: more later
[04:55]: won't take very long to uh
[04:59]: to make
[05:08]: as always I'm making a mess after this
[05:10]: we're going to wait for 15 minutes and
[05:12]: then we're going to strain it and that
[05:13]: is it
[05:14]: I'd say this is pretty good
[05:19]: pretty much melted so now what we're
[05:21]: gonna do is just turn off
[05:27]: and as I continue to whisk
[05:31]: all right we're going to turn off this
[05:33]: burner
[05:35]: and we're going to let this sit
[05:38]: off the heat or with the heat off I'm
[05:40]: not actually going to move it it'll be
[05:42]: fine here for 15 minutes so we'll be
[05:46]: back in 15 minutes to show you what we
[05:48]: do then so this has been sitting on the
[05:51]: stove for 15 minutes off the heat well
[05:53]: with the heat off underneath it and now
[05:56]: we're going to strain it it looks like
[05:57]: it has a few little bits of stuff and it
[05:59]: did have a um
[06:02]: a like a skin on top that happens all
[06:05]: the time but
[06:08]: the pan is still pretty hot so
[06:13]: I'm gonna need this so this is gonna be
[06:15]: super fun
[06:25]: these are bad timing girl
[06:31]: all right
[06:36]: okay
[06:45]: there we go so I'm just gonna sort of
[06:48]: get as much of the liquid out as as I
[06:51]: can it looks like some of the solids
[06:53]: from the chocolate
[06:54]: um didn't melt but I'm not going to
[06:56]: worry too much about that
[06:59]: but there we go got all the liquid I'm
[07:01]: gonna get a clean spatula to scrape the
[07:04]: bottom
[07:05]: just to get all of that
[07:08]: good chocolate
[07:16]: there we go
[07:18]: so we just trained this into a pitcher
[07:20]: that we can put in the refrigerator when
[07:22]: we're done I'm going to go ahead and
[07:26]: serve some for the family
[07:29]: I'm just gonna pour I think I'm gonna
[07:30]: pour one for you and then I'll do the
[07:32]: rest
[07:33]: later so I think we're gonna do
[07:39]: it seems really rich I'm going to do
[07:41]: pretty small cups here and she says to
[07:44]: turn to to serve it with
[07:47]: marshmallows or freshly whipped cream
[07:50]: but I'm gonna cheat and use this ready
[07:53]: whip canned stuff because
[07:57]: it's easier
[07:59]: and there's no place that tells you how
[08:02]: to whip cream in in this recipe so I
[08:04]: feel Justified
[08:08]: there we go
[08:11]: we'll let you know what we think in just
[08:13]: a minute
[08:20]: on this episode of cooking the books
[08:22]: with Heather you watched me make hot
[08:24]: chocolate from Tanya Holland's Brown
[08:26]: Sugar Kitchen cookbook
[08:28]: and we really liked this one
[08:31]: um
[08:32]: I've made a couple of other hot
[08:33]: chocolate recipes
[08:34]: uh at least one
[08:38]: um and she said this reminds her of
[08:41]: Paris of the Chocolat show which is
[08:45]: usually a very
[08:46]: thicker a very thick chocolatey
[08:50]: Hot Chocolate from that they serve in
[08:54]: France and I think that one of the
[08:55]: recipes I did was from
[08:57]: um
[08:58]: David liebovitz's drinking French so
[09:00]: I'll link that up there and it was very
[09:03]: similar it was a nice thick hot
[09:06]: chocolate which I like
[09:08]: um
[09:09]: it was super chocolatey it had a hint of
[09:15]: cinnamon and vanilla but it was just all
[09:19]: around it was not overpowering such that
[09:21]: the kids actually liked it sometimes
[09:22]: when there's a little bit too much of
[09:24]: that stuff they don't
[09:25]: they liked this one they liked it really
[09:28]: well
[09:29]: um and they just had we had some left
[09:32]: over and we reheated it tonight and they
[09:34]: had some more so that means it was
[09:37]: definitely good so
[09:39]: um yeah let me know in the comments down
[09:42]: below if you tried this out and
[09:45]: um
[09:46]: if you enjoyed watching me make this
[09:47]: please hit the Subscribe button and come
[09:51]: back and watch me make something else
[09:52]: next week
[09:56]: thank you