How about instant hot chocolate

[Dee]

Today I made the 1st batch of instant hot chocolate for the winter.  It's easy, tastes so good and you just add water.  On a cold winter day or night, it just hits the spot.  Today was 61 degrees but even so it was delicious.

[Littlesister]

I haven't made hot chocolate in a long while. Being that DH and I were both diabetic, I stopped doing it. That looks so good and great on a nice cold day. 

[Mother]

I have a similar recipe that makes enough mix for literally hundreds. (800-1000 cups mixed up) We served it at the museum I worked for at the annual Christmas Walk. They still do.  We used regular cocoa instead of the chocolate mix along with the other ingredients.   Much cheaper and makes it nice and rich. (So they tell me, I am terribly allergic to chocolate ). You can also buy dried mini marshmallows like comes in cereal and add that to the mix.  The colored ones look especially festive.  We used to get them in the bulk at Amish bulk food stores but I’ve seen them on Amazon. 
 

A tip. The mix makes a really nice gift.  I’ve pared it with a special mug with the directions tied on with a decorative ribbon. Great for a gift exchange too. 
 

 

[euphrasyne]

I have a similar recipe that uses cocoa powder instead of Nesquik.  

 

HOT CHOCOLATE
1/2 c sugar
1/4 c cocoa
dash salt
1/3 c hot water
4 c milk
3/4 tsp vanilla
Combine sugar, cocoa, and salt; blend in water. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until mixture boils. Boil and stir 1 minute. Add milk, stir and heat till serving temperature. DO NOT BOIL! Remove from heat, add vanilla. Serve.

 

I mix it up with the equivalent of powdered milk for the brand and heat it with hot water and almond extract instead of vanilla to serve.  One of my huge cooking secrets is to use almond extract instead of vanilla extract with most sweets.  It makes an amazing difference and people go crazy over it.  

Edited November 19, 2023 by euphrasyne

[Ambergris]

Mmmm.....chocolate.   

Wild tree with photo of the flower:  

 

Fruits from two kinds of chocolate trees.  Yellow is from a holstein-cow type tree, red is from a jersey-cow type tree.   

 

 

The fruit is sweet and juicy, around a bitter purplish core.    

 

People can eat the fruit, which is kind of banana-y, but that's not real sanitary or economically viable if the point is to sell chocolate.  So they just wash and ferment it away to get to the valuable purple part  (which also needs to be fermented, dried, ground, etc).

  

 

[Ambergris]

I might have mixed up the yellow and red, but there are jersey types (rich in flavor, low in production) and there are holstein types (huge production, less flavor).

[Littlesister]

That recipe is how I used to make hot chocolate. Might make it but substitute the sugar. 

 

Chocolate trees sounds like its right up my ally. Just need to learn how to turn it into chocolate bars. Though they might not live around here. 

[Jeepers]

Well this is just great. Right after I get back from the bulk food stores, recipes start popping up for storing a hot chocolate mix. Now I want a few bags of cocoa to mix up. You guys....   I used to make my mix using powdered sugar. I think. I need to find my recipe box. 

 

And, did you hear there is going to be a serious reduction in the supply of cocoa? Prices have already gone up 66%. It seems that 50% of all cocoa comes from only two countries, Ghana and The Ivory Coast, and they are in a terrible weather situation right now. Drought, El Nino, global warming, global cooling, greedy Americans, Trump.   

 

 

[Littlesister]

Yep, after a while it all runs together.  Guess I better buy a couple more cans of cocoa. I have 2 or 3 now but I do make things with it and not just cocoa to drink. 

[Mother]

Ambergris, those look nothing like what I expected chocolate to come from!!!