Give your hot chocolate a little kick – Mug Shots

The recipe for Divine Hot Chocolate that Kelly Estes posted looks relatively easy and super delicious, but I’m lazy (hence the feverish devotion to my Keurig). So to that end, I’d like to share a simple way to give any hot chocolate a little kick, whether it be fancy, or made from a powder.

I was over at a friend’s house recently, and she had the Food Network on. They were talking about Jacques Torres Chocolate in New York; specifically the Wicked Hot Chocolate that he makes there. Obviously, it’s made with a crapload of real chocolate, and it also features a dollop of whipped cream so heavy and solid that it looks as though you’re ordering your hot chocolate a la mode. That, however, isn’t what struck me. What struck me is that he used chipotle peppers in it. Maybe I’m naive, but using a ingredient for chili never occurred to me vis a vis hot chocolate.

I’m sure it’s a secret recipe, so they don’t go into the amounts of the spices, but in addition to chipotle and ancho chili peppers, they also use cinnamon and allspice. So while I couldn’t recreate it myself, I knew that 9 out of 10 times I wouldn’t want to bother anyway– so I experimented.

I went into the cabinet, grabbed my cloves, allspice, cinnamon, and my nearly empty bottle of ground chipotle peppers (we like things spicy here). While I’ve long added cinnamon to my coffee and hot chocolate, this was new for me. There’s no real recipe, I just threw in a dash of each spice into my empty mug and placed it under the Keurig. About a minute later, I had a delightful cup of steaming hot chocolate with what looked like dirt floating around in it.

Not one to be overly concerned about such things, I just grabbed the whipped cream out of the fridge and, voila! If you cover it up, it’s totally cool. I took a sip, and I was in heaven. You wouldn’t think that chipotle pepper would be a good idea, but the other flavors mask it, leaving just the spice behind. It’s a lovely drink, and in an instant you can feel all warm and fuzzy. Even though the holidays are over, you can make this and feel like it’s Christmas morning all over again.

Clacked by Kona Gallagher
on Jan 14, 2010 @ 10:00 EST5EDT