Hot chocolate

[khiemtran]

Since I've stopped drinking coffee, I've been increasingly interested in drinking hot chocolate.

It's actually quite hard to find good hot chocolate in Australia. I much prefer dark chocolate over milk and I like my hot chocolate the same way. Most of the cafes here simply put a squirt of syrup in a glass and then pour in some steamed milk. This usually turns out way too sweet and tasteless for me.

One thing I have found is that every now and then I can find a Starbucks' hot chocolate that's strong enough for me. The one at Sydney airport does them, and so does the one at KLIA in Malaysia. It seems to be something of a hit and miss affair, based on which store you go to and maybe even who's making them that day. Tragically, my local Starbucks makes them so weak and sweet it's not worth bothering.

The next logical step was to try making them at home. Something else I've been wondering for a while is why the Cadbury hot chocolate they serve on long haul Qantas flights is so good. Generally Cadbury chocolate is way to far on the milky, sugary side for me. In the interests of science, I bought a tin of Cadbury drinking chocolate to find out.

The initial results were surprising. The Cadbury drinking chocolate was way too sweet - almost 70 per cent sugar, and I needed almost four teaspoons of the stuff per cup to get any real chocolate flavour. By that stage, it was almost too sweet to be drinkable. So, why was it so good on the plane? Was it just because anything would taste good after eight hours in economy, or did they use some different recipe?

One of the first rules of science is to make sure you control all the variables. One thing I did notice is that the airborne Cadbury chocolate always came with a marshmallow in the cup. I'm not usually a fan of marshmallows, but surely adding a sugary sweet to a drink that's already too sweet is not going to help right?

The next rule is to question all of your assumptions. In the interests of advancing the body of human knowledge, I tried again, this time adding a marshmallow to the Cadbury chocolate. As expected, it was very sweet. But to my surprise, it was also drinkable. The marshmallow added extra flavour (admittedly artificial). It also gave the drink some texture, to make it closer to the mouthfeel I like.

It's still a bit too sweet for my taste, but it's getting there.

The next step is to try reproducing the Viennese hot chocolate I had in Prague - so thick it bent gravity. Onwards, in the name of science!

Comments

[hrj.livejournal.com]

I did a number of drinking chocolate (not "hot chocolate") experiments to try to reproduce a Parisian style that my friend scotica had described. What seemed to work in the end was using solid chocolate (preferably in chip form to speed melting time) in milk in a double-boiler. At that point, it's a matter of experimenting with the weight of chocolate per volume of milk and the percentage rating of the chocolate. I think I tend to go for about 20 g of 70% chocolate in about 6 oz of milk (yes, I measure solids in grams and liquids in ounces -- an artifact of my measurement equipment). Put it all in the double-boiler and heat while stirring with a whisk until the chocolate is completely melted and incorporated. At this point additives can be included (cinnamon, vanilla sugar, etc.).

But the key is that unlike powdered chocolate for making cocoa or chocolate milk, you actually have to melt the chocolate chunks in this version. You can't just put the chocolate in hot milk and stir -- it'll just form a sludge in the bottom of the cup. On the other hand, if you increase the chocolate-to-milk ratio sufficiently, and then let the result cool, you can get a very simple imitation of pot au creme. Oh, and if that's what you're aiming for, then make it with light cream rather than milk.

I found a very delightful double-boiler that comes as a single hollow-shell unit with a rounded interior vessel. (There's a little opening at the top of the handle for adding more water -- no clue as to what to do if you have water with a high mineral content and start forming deposits inside.) It works very well with the whisk and I can use a silicon bowl-scraper to get every last drop out when it's ready.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

That's interesting, thanks! We haven't got a double boiler, but I think I could use a metal bowl over a saucepan, as I normally do for chocolate. A little double boiler sounds like just the thing. I'll keep my eye out for one. In the name of science, of course.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

Can you get cocoa? I also find Cadbury's drinking chocolate far too sweet and make my winter hot chocolate drink with cocoa, to which I can add sugar to suit my own taste.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Yes, we can get it, although we don't have any in the house. There's just a little matter of a nearly full time of Cadbury's drinking chocolate to get through first...

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... I think I'd be inclined to see if I could use up the drinking chocolate in chocolate cakes, muffins or cookies and buy a tin of cocoa for drinking. Green & Blacks do a cocoa, though the Cadbury's is OK.

[sciamanna.livejournal.com]

I second the suggestion of using cocoa instead of drinking chocolate. You can then adjust the quantity of sugar to your taste, and ditto for the quantity of milk (I usually make hot chocolate with water instead of milk).

For thick chocolate: Italian hot chocolate is quite thick. You might find packets of instant Italian hot chocolate in Italian shops, if you have any nearby. But if not (and coupled with the suggestion about using cocoa), Italian chocolate is thickened with cornflour (and any other thickening starch works just as well, since they're all flavourless in the small quantities needed). I know it doesn't sound glamorous, but it works, and it's how Italian bars do it. Can't say about Czech bars, but maybe that's what they do too -- you can get your chocolate *quite* thick with cornflour :-)

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

That sounds interesting. Any brand names to look for?

[sciamanna.livejournal.com]

Well, the "everyday" Italian brand is called Ciobar -- it's definitely ok, but not the best. I'm desperately trying to remember the name of a nice "luxury" brand that I've found in an Italian café here in Dublin, but I'm blanking on it -- I'll come back with it if I remember. But basically any Italian brand of hot chocolate (cioccolata calda) should be fine, there are so many small producers and they're often the best, but I've only tasted one or two so I can't really recommend... (Ciobar is the only big brand, which pretty much everybody knows, so much so that people will talk about "un ciobar" to mean "a cup of instant hot chocolate" rather than the specific brand.)