#baking ?

[ask2dstuff]

what’s heavier: a kilogram of steel or a kilogram of feathers?

[senzasord]

Since we've had some wild weather today and are getting more on Monday, I thought I'd share my progress with my hot chocolate recipe. This is an amalgamation of several recipes I found, and also some trial and error. It tastes fantastic, but has quite a lot of sugar and milk in it, so if you're avoiding either of those, this is probably not the recipe for you.

Makes: 1 mug Takes: idfk, I'm time blind; who times things? Maybe 10 mins????

Ingredients - 1 dessert spoon of unsweetened cocoa - 1-2 dessert spoon(s) of sugar - 1 dessert spoon of cornflour (or to liking) - one row of chocolate/small handful of choc chips (or to liking) - 1 1/2 cups of milk - any spices to liking (I usually use cinnamon, nutmeg, and sometimes vanilla essence) Equipment - mug - saucepan - dessert spoon - 1/2 measure cup (australian metric, so 120ml) - whisk (I use a plastic one) Method (I'm the kind of person that needs the 'in-between' steps written out, so that's how I'm writing this. Also trying to use as little equipment and effort as possible)

1. Using your dessert spoon, do the following (in this order if you want to avoid washing it in between): - put your sugar in the saucepan - put your cornflour in the mug - put your cocoa in the saucepan

2. Put you spices in the saucepan

3. Pour 1/2 cup of milk in the mug and stir milk and cornstarch until dissolved

4. Break up your chocolate (or get your choc chip bag ready), and put aside

5. Pour 1 cup of milk into saucepan. Turn on stove and begin stirring with whisk until dissolved and milk has reached simmer (do not allow to boil)

6. Pour your milk and cornstarch into saucepan, stirring with whisk until thickened (it will also thicken more once off the heat)

7. Add chocolate to saucepan, turn off heat, and IMMEDIATELY stir with whisk until chocolate is entirely dissolved. You must do this before the milk cools too much otherwise the chocolate won't melt properly

8. Pour hot chocolate into mug and enjoy :)

(9. Wash equipment while waiting for drink to cool, because you won't feel like doing it later)

Notes: - My sweet spot (no pun intended) for sugar is about 1 dessert spoon - I have made this several times now with different forms of chocolate I've had around the house: Whittakers milk chocolate, Nestle choc chips, and Cadbury Milk chocolate. I found Whittakers the best, followed by the choc chips; Cadbury is okay, but not my favourite (it tastes kind of weird). I found it's easier to accidentally over-add with the choc chips as well - I used Nestle cocoa; idk if using a different one would make much difference - Because you're adding sugar AND chocolate AND cocoa, you don't need a lot of any of them, so keep that in mind when tweaking your quantities - you can add more or less cornstarch depending on how thick you want it. 1 dessert spoon was my sweet spot; several recipes I found suggested, like, 3 - that's how I got that pudding effect a couple of months ago. So, don't do that unless you're trying for pudding consistency - make sure you get the milk to a simmer before taking it off the heat, otherwise it won't thicken properly - nutmeg is quite strong; if you use it, you won't need as much as you do the cinnamon - I often commit baking sacrilege and just use whatever utensil I have at hand instead of a whisk, but the whisk actually works better in this case. If you can't be bothered dealing with the clean up, you can 100% still use your spoon though - a couple of recipes I found suggested adding salt; I honestly can't tell the difference - like any strong milk-based drink, if you let it sit in your mug a while it'll develop a skin. This is fine; just stir it and it'll redissolve

Let me know if you give it a try! :)