Real Hot Chocolate #Fireandfury

A hot chocolate is my preferred drink at the ski lodge when I desperately needed to warm up my freezing fingers and toes from the blustery winds. The hot chocolate there is none other than a cocoa mix. I’m not fussy at those moments of extreme weather conditions. All I care is a comforting warm drink. Now in the comfort of a warm kitchen, I’m more keen to have a flavorful cup of real hot chocolate made with best-quality chocolate. In fact, I tried to make one a few days ago before I learnt about Dorie’s real hot chocolate recipe.

I like Dorie’s recipe much better. It reminds me of the silky luxurious chocolate drink I had at cafés in Paris. When I started stirring small amount of melted semi-sweet chocolate (113 grams) in the boiling whole milk and water mixture (560 ml, or at roughly 1:5 chocolate-to-milk ratio), I thought the color was too pale to be a chocolate drink. But when the chocolate mixture came to a boil, while whisking constantly, the color turned increasingly darker. Then the final one-minute of whirring with an immersion blender made it all come together in the thick dark consistency of the chocolate drink of my dream.

To top it off, I had to add some fire and fury. (Sorry, my head can’t let go of the notion of Fire and Fury, the runaway new book that’s on everyone’s mind.) Imagine this with hot chocolate: holding a cup of hot chocolate with both hands in front of a roaring campfire in a cold wintry, starry night and feeling the warmth all over.

Without the campfire, I resorted to using a blowtorch and charred a bunch of marshmallows. I did it with such abandon that I had to blow out the emerging fire. That’s fun and a quick way to quell any fire and fury.

I’m linking this to Tuesdays-with-Dorie where you can read more about the making of the real hot chocolate special for the day.

Blowtorching the marshmallows