As promised, today's post is on hot chocolate! The weather here has been sunny and way too warm for hot cocoa but the last couple of days have finally felt like fall so we busted out the chocolate!
As I stood there making each person's chocolate just the way they wanted it, I thought, I should do a post about all the little things we do to hot chocolate at our house and see if anyone else had some good ideas about jazzing up hot chocolate!
1) My favorite is to add just a little pumpkin pie spice to the mix! I learned this trick from my old roommate's, Marguerite's, uncle. When I dump in the cocoa powder I usually just mix in a bit of pumpkin pie spice before I add the water and then stir it all together just the same!
2) Over the holidays I will sometimes buy coffee mate flavored creamers! Some favorites are eggnogg, pumpkin pie, and hazelnut! They kind of remind me of going to the Circle K with my friends before high school would start and buying hot chocolate. We would only fill the glass up like 3/4 of the way and then top it off with just about every flavor of creamer they had. It was more creamer than cocoa! Yep...we were pretty wild back then...pretty wild! :-)
3) Anyway, back to hot chocolate ideas. Another yummy treat is to eat them with Keebler Grasshopper cookies or the Girl Scout Thin mints. Now these aren't in my house that often because I love them and can basically gain weight just by looking at the box! But for a special occasion, buy a box and have them with hot cocoa. To eat them, bite off a small piece on two ends of the cookies. Slightly dunk one of the bitten off ends in the hot chocolate and then suck the hot chocolate through the cookie. This make the cookie soft and make the hot chocolate taste mint flavored. After it is nice and soggy eat the cookie! Repeat as necessary. And I do mean
necessary!4) My final hot chocolate idea is the cocomotion! The cocomotion is a hot chocolate maker from Mr. Coffee and it is awesome! You measure out your powder and milk and the cocomotion mixes it whilst heating it to the perfect temperature! My mom got it for each of us kids when we went away to college and it was the perfect dorm appliance! Now it is the perfect kid entertaining appliance because they love to watch it cook and swirl the cocoa before they drink it! And it does make really yummy cocoa!
Well, those are my ideas! Please comment and tell me about some of your hot chocolate traditions!
I love mixing in a little cinnamon. Whenever I get to have hot chocolate at starbucks, I ask them to mix in the hazelnut flavoring. mmm mmm.
ReplyDeleteby the way, i love your blog! I made the sweet potato fries today!
I love your humor, especially about the creamers. I also have the cocomotion, or whatever it is called. I left it in Idaho though. I love it however! Very fun for family gatherings.
ReplyDeleteUm, all I do is straight-up Swiss Miss. :-P I should live a little, huh! Who even knew you could buy pumpkin spice?? Not me. Does it taste kind of like a pumpkin chocolate chip cookie in liquid form? I've gotta try it!
ReplyDeleteI keep hearing about the cocomotion but now I have seen it, if only on your blog. Sounds delish.
Wow Julia I never knew you were so edgy. I feel pretty lame though for just drinking hot cocoa from the kroger brand packets.
ReplyDeleteVivian- I'm so glad you checked out my blog! Cinnamon does sound yummy! And I'm with you about the starbucks hot chocolate too! It is really good...plus it's one of the few places we actually have in town :-)
ReplyDeleteJosie- We will have to get together and Cocomotion sometime soon!!
Beth- We use Swiss Miss too (or sometimes Stephen's if the mood hits me right!) And the pumpkin pie spice totally makes it taste like a liquid pumpkin chocolate chip cookie! I think it's just a blend of cloves, ginger, nutmeg and cinnamon...but it tastes really yummy in hot chocolate!
Natalie and Keith- I am super edgy! I always drink creamer in my hot chocolate while I read John Steinbeck! Especially East of Eden! :-)
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