Homemade Hot Chocolate Mix

Knowing I was going to be mixing up a bunch of hot chocolate for this group of drinks I wanted to try my hand at making my own powdered hot chocolate mix.  I had seen a recipe on Good Eats a while back that sounded really tasty, included only ingredients I could actually pronounce and seemed super simple.  So a shopping I went.

Problem was, when I got to the store there were only giant boxes of powdered milk on the shelves.  I’m not sure about you, but my consumption of powdered milk is probably less than 1 tablespoon per year on average.  The giant box was going to last me the rest of my life.  Back on the hunt, I hit another grocery store and totally lucked out.  This store had powdered milk that came pre-measured pouches that will make one quart, which equated to 1 1/3 cups, slightly over half the amount required for Alton’s recipe.  In the words of Gru from Despicable Me, “Light bulb“.  I grabbed the pouches, cut the recipe in half and was on my way.

Here’s the halved recipe for posterity.

Hot Chocolate Mix (Good Eats)
1 cup Powdered Sugar
1/2 cup Cocoa (Dutch-process Preferred)
1 1/4 cups powdered milk (1 quart pouch)
1/2 tsp Salt
1 tsp Cornstarch
1 Pinch Cayenne Pepper (or More to Taste)
1) Combine the dry ingredients in a jar
2) Shake to combine
3) Use 1/2 cup of mix to a mug of hot water or milk

For this go-round I dropped the cayenne; I didn’t want its flavor getting in the way of anything else I’d be adding.  Also, the cornstarch is nice because when you use really hot water (e.g. just off the boil) the mixture thickens a bit giving it a really nice mouth feel.  In fact, I’d be tempted to add a bit more to get a really nice thick hot chocolate.  Hmmmm….might have to experiment with that one.

The biggest thing for me is the fact that this recipe gives me endless tweaking options.  Like any recipe you can add or subtract anything you like to make it truly yours.  Plus, you know where everything is coming from.  Always a plus.  Back to the mixing!


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3 responses to “Homemade Hot Chocolate Mix”

  1. Ron Avatar
    Ron

    Reese,
    From my experience with this exact recipe I can say that the cayenne plays an important part in the flavor of the chocolate coming through. Like the salt, it’s there as a flavor-enhancer rather than a flavor itself.

    I would strongly suggest doing a side-by-side with and without the pepper to determine whether or not you can single-out the flavor in the resulting brew. I did something similar for my wife who was skeptical about “spicy” hot chocolate. It turns out she couldn’t taste any spicyness and the pepper remains in our recipe.

  2. Reese Avatar

    Great advice, Ron. I’ll definitely do a side-by-side and see if I can notice the difference.

    Thanks much!

    -R

  3. […] I posted last week about the homemade hot chocolate mix that I’m using for these drinks.  Ron posted a comment about my choice to omit the cayenne […]