3 Luxury Hot Chocolate Recipes – A Chocolatier Guide
A Chocolatier Guide to Luxury Hot Chocolate In this article we will share our best Luxury Hot Chocolate Recipes! Melt Chocolates is an artisan chocolate boutique based in Notting Hill London, and our ethos is to teach people to enjoy chocolate in its purest form. This includes hot chocolate! As we move swiftly into the cold months of November and December, we enter a new, cosier phase of living. One which centers around warmth, comfort and happiness. As the leaves turn golden and the days grow darker, we take harbour from the crisp winter air in small cafes filled with the smell of hot chocolate and cakes. You can’t beat that feeling of contentment, when you hold that warm mug of hot chocolate, the steam curling onto your face, as you sit wrapped up in a blanket watching the cold wind blow outside. This feeling is defined by Scandanavian people as ‘Hygge‘. Though it has no direct translation, we can better understand Hygge as a concept with key features or practices. Some of the ways to experience hygge is to light soft atmospheric candles, sit under a warm blanket with a book, and to enjoy a hot drink and a sweet treat! The Little Book of Hygge by Meik Wiking found that the number 1 thing that Danes associate hygge with was hot drinks. So we want to share our best luxury hot chocolate recipes so that you can recreate that perfect hot chocolate café moment at home with your friends and family. The Key to Any Luxury Hot Chocolate: Chocolate The key to a delicious hot chocolate is the chocolate! In our luxury hot chocolate recipes we use pure chocolate – not cocoa powder or hot chocolate mixtures. Make sure you choose high quality solid chocolate. We would recommend choosing any chocolate over 35%. Anything below and it risks your hot chocolate just becoming too sugary. Also good quality chocolate melts at body temperature. If you held one button of dark chocolate and one white chocolate button in the palm of your hand, the dark would melt first. So when you’re making hot chocolate, you want your chocolate to melt beautifully into the milk. So the higher the percentage on the chocolate (the darker it is) the better it is for hot chocolate! No Added Sugar We also believe in letting the chocolate flavours speak for itself, so in all of these recipes there is no added sugar. There is enough sugar in milk chocolate already to make the hot chocolate sweet! We like our hot chocolates to soothe rather than to excite, just like the hygge mentality. The feeling after drinking a hot chocolate should be peaceful, not a sugar rush! Though of course, each person is welcome to personalise these recipes as they wish! Adding some sweet whipped cream or marshmallows to make your hot chocolate perfect for you is encouraged. So, here are some simple recipes to inspire you to make the best hot chocolate you can: 1. The Fluffy Bunny Hot Chocolate: The Fluffy Bunny is the perfect hot chocolate for children, or for those of us who prefer the milkier, fluffier kinds of hot chocolate. This hot chocolate recipe […]
