Homemade Hot Cocoa Recipes

Cold weather brings out the large comforting mugs in our household each and every year right around the same time the Harvest Moon shows his face. My body seems to run alongside Mother Nature's seasonal changes and during Fall through the Winter seasons I start to naturally crave hot cocoa. Here are a few of my favorite hot cocoa recipes:

Directions for all recipes: Place all ingredients in a sauce pan and warm on low to medium heat, stirring occasionally until chocolate dissolves into liquid ingredients. All recipes are written for one serving, multiple as needed for your family. All chocolate should be thinly sliced with a knife to melt easily.

Recipe #1: Regular Dark Hot Chocolate

¼ cup Dark Chocolate

1/8 cup Heavy Cream

1 ½ cups Milk

Recipe #2: Mexican Dark Hot Chocolate

¼ cup Dark Chocolate

1/8 cup Heavy Cream

1½ cups Milk

1 tbsp Cinnamon

Optional: pinch of cayenne or chili powder for an added kick

Recipe #3: Vanilla Dark Hot Chocolate

¼ cup Dark Chocolate

1/8 cup Heavy Cream

1½ cups Milk

½ Vanilla Bean (remember to remove the shell before drinking)

Optional: If you do not have a vanilla bean you can use a liquid sweetener such as Vanilla Torani as a substitute.

Recipe #4: Pumpkin Spiced Dark Hot Chocolate

¼ cup Dark Chocolate

1/8 cup Heavy Cream

1 ½ cups Milk

1/4 tsp Pumpkin Pie Spice Mixture (This can be purchased in the grocery store as a whole or it can be an equal mixture of cinnamon, ginger and ground cloves.)

Optional: To make an extra strong pumpkin pie spiced hot cocoa try also adding ½ tbsp of liquid sweetener such as Pumpkin flavored Torani.

Recipe #5: Creamy Caramel Dark Hot Chocolate

¼ cup Dark Chocolate filled with Caramel Chocolates

1/8 cup Heavy Cream

1½ cups Milk

Special Tips:

Tip #1: In my household we do not tend to eat too much candy, even throughout the holiday seasons. That does not stop me from having plenty of chocolate around the household awaiting to be eaten by guests. Unfortunately all of it is not consumed entirely by the end of the season. My special trick is to place the entire lot of unused chocolate candy sitting around the house and place it in the freezer. Use this stored chocolate as a stash for using in hot cocoa during the cooler months. It saves money in the long run and allows your waistline not to increase while sitting out in a candy dish. Make sure you hide the chocolate in the back of the freezer to assure you are not tempted to eat the stored chocolate each time you open the freezer door.

Tip#2: Sugar-free Hot Cocoa is just as easy to make as the sugary versions. All it takes is some sugar-free chocolates in substitution for dark chocolate with sugar. In addition, the optional more pricey versions added to the recipes above all contain liquid sweetener such as Torani which can be purchased as sugar-free.

Tip #3: For an extra special treat try treating your family to "fancy" hot cocoa and add either marshmallow flush or whipped cream on top of each serving of hot cocoa. Sprinkle the top with sprinkles (sugar or sugar-free) and/or drizzle with hot melting chocolate or caramel.

Tip #4: If you are allergic or do not like the taste of any type of milk, try using 3 tbsp coconut milk with 1 cup water as a wonderful substitute for milk.

Tip#5:If you are allergic or prefer to not use chocolate simply substitute carob powder in exchange for the chocolate.