The perfect Hot Chocolate - Hints & Tips
By Vincent Allen

Here are a few hints & tips for making a great hot chocolate drink.

The key to a great drink recipe is choosing the right ingredients. I recommend the following:-

Drinking Chocolate

Cadbury's Drinking Chocolate
It has a mild milky taste and is not too sweet

Hotel Chocolat's Liquid chocolat
If you prefer the more intense chocolate flavour

Whittard of Chelsea White Hot Chocolate
Something a little different

Milk
It has to be full fat milk! This is supposed to be a treat after all. Full fat milk is creamier and produces better froth on the top of your drink.

Cream
The thicker the better! Squirty cream if fine as long as it is extra thick, but whipped cream is even better.

Spices
Chocolate goes great with a few spices, here are just a few:-

Cinnamon - A pinch of cinnamon in the bottom of your cup works great
Nutmeg - as with cinnamon a pinch in the bottom of you cup works too
Vanilla - Use extracts or fresh vanilla pod seeds and not essence
Chili - Popular with the Aztecs, chocolate and chili is a great combination
Peppermint - Works best with white hot chocolate
Raspberry sauce - Again goes great with white hot chocolate

Marshmallows
A hot chocolate has to have marshmallows. A hot chocolate without marshmallows is like having lamb without mint sauce!

The Softer the marshmallow the better, don't use flumps they are just not the same. The small marshmallows are great to place on top, if you can ever find them in your local stores, if not a couple on the side is just as good and great for dunking.

Booze
For the grown ups you can always add a touch of booze. Why not try a shot of bailey's in your hot chocolate or for a white hot chocolate try Framboise Liqueur.

Decoration
With the marshmallows and cream you are almost there, it just needs a sprinkle of chocolate on the top. I think a breaking up a Cadbury's flake is great on the top or you could just great up a bar of dairy milk or galaxy.

And just to finish it off, stick a Cadbury's button on the top.

If you are making a white hot chocolate you could try raspberry sauce on the top or even a fresh raspberry and great up a milky bar to sprinkle on the top.

Hope you have got inspired to try something different with your hot chocolate.

All this writing has made me thirsty, right what shall I have to drink? Mmmmm....

The Perfect Hot Chocolate - The funniest home videos are here