The author and cook, Heather

Chocolat Chaud (Hot Chocolate)

Drinking French

This is the richest, most luxurious hot chocolate (not hot cocoa) I've ever had! With only two ingredients (plus whatever topping you might like), it can't really get any simpler.

The quality of your chocolate will really make a difference in this dish. In my experience, since I did have to make it twice, chocolate with a higher cacao content will result in a thicker end product (and will probably require more sugar, unless you like it with more of the bitter dark chocolate flavor.) If you don't like it as thick, just add more milk.

You can keep leftovers in the refrigerator to reheat another day; David Lebovitz says it will taste even better that way. And we all really could only drink a small amount of this, it was SO rich.

Captions

[00:00]: [Music]
[00:04]: hello
[00:05]: and welcome to cooking the books with
[00:06]: heather today we're going to be working
[00:08]: mostly here at the stove
[00:10]: because we are working out of david
[00:13]: leibovitz's
[00:14]: drinking french cookbook again and we're
[00:16]: gonna be making something the kids can
[00:18]: taste this time um hot chocolate
[00:21]: chocolate show um and full confession
[00:25]: this is the second time we're making
[00:27]: this because we had some
[00:29]: technical snafus the first time
[00:33]: so uh the first time i made it using
[00:36]: a chopped chocolate bittersweet i think
[00:39]: it was a little over
[00:40]: 70 cacao this
[00:43]: is i decided this time i was going to
[00:45]: use uh chocolate chips so i didn't have
[00:47]: to chop chocolate because that's one of
[00:48]: my least favorite things to do
[00:50]: in the kitchen um so i'm using
[00:53]: these girl deli bittersweet chocolate
[00:56]: chips they're 60
[00:58]: um so it's already chopped up for me
[01:02]: and we're just going to add the milk
[01:06]: now this it serves two to four people
[01:09]: it says um i would say it's probably
[01:13]: closer to four it's a really thick
[01:16]: really rich
[01:18]: uh hot chocolate and um the last time
[01:22]: i don't think any of us could have more
[01:24]: than a quarter of it
[01:25]: at one time um so so we're gonna warm
[01:29]: this
[01:30]: until it almost boils
[01:33]: he does not say over what heat i'm gonna
[01:36]: kind of
[01:36]: i want to kind of get it up a little bit
[01:38]: faster than last time does it took
[01:40]: bathroom so i think i'm going to go
[01:43]: medium medium high
[01:44]: for this but we don't want it to boil
[01:47]: because milk will very quickly boil over
[01:50]: and we have a whisk which we're going to
[01:51]: use
[01:53]: as it as it uh heats up
[01:57]: we want to incorporate this very well
[02:00]: um and and hopefully not burn the
[02:03]: chocolate because that is
[02:05]: a bad thing um
[02:09]: and so this uses whole milk and not
[02:12]: heavy cream or half and half or anything
[02:15]: like that
[02:16]: but it does turn out to be very thick
[02:18]: and very rich
[02:20]: so it seems like it might have a lot of
[02:22]: cream but it really just has a lot of
[02:23]: chocolate in it
[02:24]: um so we're going to be bringing this up
[02:28]: to
[02:28]: almost of oil and then we'll
[02:32]: let you know what we do after that as
[02:34]: soon as we get there
[02:39]: all right so this is now kind of almost
[02:42]: starting to boil you can see little
[02:44]: bubbles popping on the surface
[02:46]: and i want to turn it down now he says
[02:48]: to turn it to the lowest
[02:50]: heat you have and let it simmer i know
[02:53]: mine won't be simmering on my lowest
[02:56]: heat i think i'm going to go with
[02:59]: um
[03:03]: yeah maybe about a two i did it at the
[03:06]: lowest heat before but
[03:07]: i think this is better anyway uh so
[03:10]: we're supposed to whisk
[03:11]: for three minutes and i'm just gonna
[03:12]: watch the clock it took about
[03:16]: um six or seven minutes to come up to a
[03:19]: boil
[03:20]: anyway so now i'm gonna whisk for about
[03:22]: three minutes
[03:24]: i've whisked this for three to four
[03:26]: minutes
[03:27]: um on the lowest heat and he says to
[03:29]: remove it
[03:30]: from the heat i'm not going to bother
[03:33]: too much my element didn't get that hot
[03:35]: you can tell because
[03:36]: my stove doesn't say that it's hot
[03:38]: currently so i often with my induction
[03:40]: range i don't bother
[03:42]: moving it off if i think that the
[03:45]: stove isn't that hot anyway so we're
[03:48]: gonna let it sit
[03:49]: until we feel like we can taste it
[03:52]: because um depending on
[03:55]: the type of chocolate that you used how
[03:58]: much cacao
[03:59]: is in the chocolate that you use and
[04:01]: your personal preferences
[04:03]: for how sweet you want it at that point
[04:06]: once it's cool enough to taste
[04:08]: you should add sugar i did not actually
[04:10]: get out any sugar
[04:11]: he suggests sort of a natural turbinado
[04:15]: type sugar
[04:17]: a grain a raw sugar raw granulated or
[04:22]: [Music]
[04:23]: any other or even light brown sugar to
[04:26]: add to this
[04:27]: i think with the 70 70
[04:31]: maybe two i think it is percent cacao
[04:33]: chocolate that i used we added
[04:35]: um about one packet
[04:38]: per quarter serving um
[04:43]: per serving so per quarter of the recipe
[04:46]: and
[04:47]: that was good for us maybe even a little
[04:49]: bit sweet for people who like
[04:51]: a bitter chocolate um
[04:54]: but that's when you decide in fact i
[04:57]: think
[04:58]: it doesn't get super hot so i'm gonna
[04:60]: try it right now um like i said i didn't
[05:02]: take any out because this is
[05:03]: a lot less cacao um
[05:06]: more than 10 less
[05:10]: that's not that hot and it is perfectly
[05:13]: sweet enough for us
[05:14]: um at this point
[05:18]: you can drink it immediately or you can
[05:20]: re-warm it
[05:21]: you can let it sit for 15 minutes to
[05:23]: relax
[05:24]: oh and then re-warm it to your preferred
[05:27]: drinking temperature
[05:28]: after that we're going to let it sit for
[05:31]: a couple minutes
[05:32]: and then we're just going to drink it it
[05:34]: gets thicker and thicker
[05:35]: the cooler it gets but it is really a
[05:39]: rich and delicious
[05:40]: hot chocolate but we'll come back and
[05:44]: let you know what everybody thought of
[05:45]: it
[05:46]: in just a bit
[05:51]: on this episode of cooking the books
[05:53]: with heather you watched me make the
[05:54]: chocolate show from david leibovitz's
[05:57]: drinking french book
[05:59]: for the second time you guys didn't get
[06:01]: to see the first time
[06:02]: anyway so he suggests serving this
[06:05]: either with
[06:06]: armagnac marshmallows which is a recipe
[06:08]: in the book that i have not made
[06:10]: but i used these um bourbon marshmallows
[06:13]: that i got in a
[06:15]: uh in a christmas gift basket
[06:18]: or with whipped cream and i of course
[06:21]: just used some
[06:22]: canned whipped cream because yeah
[06:26]: anyway so this is a really
[06:30]: thick rich and delicious hot chocolate
[06:33]: that i did not think my kids would like
[06:36]: but they would like to tell you
[06:38]: whether they do or not so
[06:41]: you want to taste it
[06:46]: not as thick as it used to be
[06:49]: so the our first one seemed a little bit
[06:51]: thicker
[06:52]: but we used a higher cacao content so
[06:55]: maybe that's why
[06:56]: uh higher cacao content chocolate so
[06:59]: maybe that is why
[07:00]: but um how do you hold this thing
[07:04]: use three fingers instead of four
[07:08]: through the thing
[07:11]: yeah hold it like that just like that
[07:16]: i tried to find some smaller cups which
[07:18]: is
[07:20]: uh that's all right we'll wash it um
[07:23]: so we loved it it's my opinion
[07:28]: what do you think
[07:31]: it's hot chocolate so it can't go wrong
[07:33]: there apparently
[07:35]: um this does get much thicker as it
[07:38]: cools
[07:39]: which is another thing i think it was
[07:40]: maybe a little bit cooler when they had
[07:42]: it last time
[07:43]: but it is not so hard
[07:47]: i have to say i've made hot chocolate
[07:50]: from chocolate not
[07:51]: cocoa before in the microwave you just
[07:54]: have to be
[07:55]: a little bit um
[07:58]: more careful to take it out like when
[08:01]: you melt chocolate in the microwave
[08:03]: you have to take it out and stir it
[08:05]: pretty often
[08:06]: but i've done it that way and it makes
[08:08]: it a little bit easier but this is not
[08:09]: that hard it's only
[08:10]: two to three ingredients not including
[08:13]: whatever you want to top it with
[08:15]: so uh let me know if you decide to try
[08:18]: this
[08:19]: and if you enjoyed it what you think of
[08:21]: it in the comments down below
[08:23]: um hit the subscribe button and come
[08:26]: back and watch me make something else
[08:27]: next week