January 9, 2011

Hot Cocoa

My boys love hot cocoa. In fact, sometimes I think they go out to play in the snow just so they can come in and demand cocoa. But have you ever read the ingredients on a packet of store-bought cocoa? Yuck! Instead, I make my own dry mix in a big batch and just add it to hot water as needed.

My basic recipe is:
3 cups non-fat powdered milk
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 cup sugar
dash of salt

I use 4 tablespoons of mix for every 8 oz of water.  You can punch it up with vanilla extract, chocolate syrup, chocolate chips (or grated chocolate if you want to get fancy), peppermint or peppermint flavoring, cinnamon, etc. And don't forget the marshmallows!

2 comments:

be said...

i wonder if there's a good non-soy and non-dairy alternative to the milk...?

The Mommy Blawger said...

I thought about mentioning that - you could use rice or almond milk or whatever milk-substitute you like. But then you are just adding sugar and cocoa powder to it, so there's not much point in mixing the dry ingredients ahead of time, kwim? I haven't tried it though.

To reconstitute dry milk powder, you use 1/3 powder to a scant 1 cup of water. So my recipe makes 9 cups of liquid total.

 
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