Since Hazel was a tea drinker and Leila was a coffee drinker, I knew for Pip I wanted something different, which is why I chose to give her an obsession for hot chocolate!
Greyson is an excellent mate, and in Fated he admits that he learned how to make homemade hot chocolate specifically for her. I went through a lot of recipes in figuring out what ingredients he needed and I tried a few recipes myself, but I was more than a little surprised at all the requests I got for Greyson’s recipe, so here it is!
Ingredients:
Approximately 1 cup milk of your choice (Whole or 2% cow milk will make for a creamier, richer taste, but if you REALLY want a rich flavor, add some cream or half and half)
Sugar (I use a large tbsp but you might want 2 tbsp depending on if you choose to add toppings and how sweet you like your drinks)
Baking Cocoa Powder (A heaping tbsp, but again you can add more to adjust for your taste and based on the cocoa powder you use)
Large pinch of Cinnamon
Large pinch of Nutmeg
Splash of Vanilla extract (I’m very generous with my vanilla–it smells soooo good–so I usually add two splashes.)
IMPORTANT NOTE: To get your hot chocolate to taste the best, you really want to focus on the kind of cocoa powder you use. Most recipes I came across recommend Dutch Cocoa–I bought mine at Penzey’s Spice–but I also used the Ghirardelli unsweetened cocoa powder for baking, and that turned out fabulous as well. (I also made some with store brand baking cocoa powder. It was tasty, but the Ghirardelli and Dutch cocoa was definitely a big step up. If you don’t want to buy the fancy baking cocoa powder, I’d suggest you cheat and add in a few semi sweet chocolate chips to melt in the milk!)
Second note: Adjust the cinnamon and nutmeg to your taste–the less sugar you use the less spices you’ll want to use, or the nutmeg can make the chocolate taste slightly bitter. In general I’d say use more cinnamon than nutmeg–nutmeg is a very flavorful spice!
Heat the milk in a saucepan on the stovetop–don’t let it boil or it will get this gross skin on it–and stir near constantly. Once it warms to a drinking temperature you want, stir in all of the above ingredients.
I personally think it tastes best when topped with whipped cream and/or marshmallows! (Especially whipped cream because then you can add sprinkles or chocolate or caramel drizzle if you’re feeling fancy!) But Greyson is not going to stretch his cooking skills, so he typically gives it to Pip without anything extra. (Unless he needs to apologize for something. Then out come the sprinkles!)
Does anybody have homemade hot chocolate recipes they’d like to share in the comments? I was astounded by the huge varieties in recipes I found when I was doing my research, but as I experimented I realized it mostly comes down to personal taste! If you are curious about the other recipes I found I linked to most of them on this Pinterest board.
Hot Chocolate is my favorite! Thanks for sharing! We love having a homemade dry mix on hand as well and the Dutch cocoa is our choice, sometimes with a few grains of chipotle pepper. Hope you are able to treat yourself to some when all your procedures are complete! Chin up, and we hope you do not mind some thoughts and prayers being sent your way as you face the changes in your plans this year.
Add a dried chili pepper to the milk while it heats. Works really well with the cinnamon and nutmeg. Little goes a long way though! I use 1/4 of a pequin pepper per cup of milk.
Can’t wait to try the recipe!
I usually just get store-bought hot chocolate, but I can’t wait to try this recipe (with a ton of marshmallows)
I always make my hot chocolate from scratch! It’s so much better than the mixes! I mix up a container of the dry ingredients so when I need hot chocolate I just have add it to the milk and heat it up. My recipe is: two parts sugar, one part sugar, a generous sprinkle of cinnamon, a sprinkle of nutmeg, and a tiny pinch of cayenne pepper. I usually add vanilla or almond extract to the milk when I’m heating it up. That is so good!
Oops. The recipe is two parts sugar to one part cocoa!
I’m so glad you had a heroine who liked hot chocolate. I can’t wait to see the drink of choice in the next series. I tried this recipe but used chocolate chips instead of cocoa powder. I think this is dessert drink to be indulged in once a year! Very good! But I don’t run 5-8 miles three times a week to justify this kind of decadence. Thank you for another great series!
If you want a good hot chocolate, then it needs to include melted milk, white, or dark chocolate, with full cream milk.
Ahh. In terms of something different I purpose the vampire slayer be obsessed with Chai Latte with Almond Milk (and never a dirty chai, and yes I CAN tell it has coffee – even just the smell of coffee is obvious (and unwelcome) to me). There are also some great inventions of hot milk drinks, matcha latte, beetroot cacoa and purple potato latte are among my favourites. Latte without coffee is a great invention! Though don’t order a ‘latte’ in Italy, I got a steaming mug of hot milk haha! Lucky I’d just brought a toblerone bar so toblerone hot chocolate for me! Fyi hot choc is Italy is literally molten choc (no milk). Hence why I had to try something different (even coffee) and got hot milk instead.
Thanks for sharing the recipe. I actually tried to find a recipe that included all the ingredients mentioned in the book. I look forward to trying this one. It just sounds too good not to try it out before it gets too warm to really enjoy homemade hot chocolate. 😋
I love a good hot chocolate! My favorite homemade is from Mel’s Kitchen Cafe and they are actually make ahead. They are truffle balls, really just melted chocolate and heavy cream into a soft ganache, then you freeze. Then, when the craving hits, you just heat some milk and drop the truffle in and BAM! Decadent hot chocolate.
https://www.melskitchencafe.com/truffle-hot-chocolate-balls-sugar-rush-2/
Thank you for sharing! My son had just mentioned how much he wished we could make the hot chocolate from the book! We have a dairy allergy so can’t usually use store-bought. I really look forward to trying this!
FWIW, we have no-dairy people here, too, and we’ve found coconut milk is the best substitution for our tastes. If you don’t like coconut, though, I suspect oat milk would be nice, too.
I’m not real picky about my hot chocolate, and these definitely aren’t my go to recipes, but another author I really love, Shannon Messenger, has a couple of recipes that are delicious! She likes to come up with recipes for some of the foods in her Keeper of the Lost Cities books. One is called Cinnacreme (its a vanilla hot chocolate with a hint of cinnamon) and its in book 8.5: Unlocked. You can also find it online or on her pinterest account (sorry its not on her website at the moment; she removed it to make room for a new recipe). I also just found that she has a new hot chocolate recipe called Mallowmelt Hot Chocolate on her website (https://shannonmessenger.com/keeper-of-lost-cities/recipes.html) that I haven’t tried yet! She has a ton of other delicious recipes on there and in the book as well. I can’t wait to try this recipe too, thanks so much for sharing it!