I don’t know about you, but I drink hot chocolate all year long, not just during Hallmark movie season – and you might, too, if you knew how insanely easy it is to made a stellar cup of chocolate from scratch!

I’d call this hot chocolate “restaurant quality,” but most of the hot chocolate I’ve been served hasn’t been nearly this good. This chocolate is rich with a flavor so deep you won’t believe your taste buds. If you knew a cafe that served a hot chocolate this good, you’d be going back again and again and bringing all your friends.

There’s a difference between cocoa and hot chocolate. They’re both delicious, but hot chocolate has a more luscious texture. If you start with the right chocolate, with a flavor you love and the level of sweetness that you desire, making hot chocolate requires you to simply melt the chocolate into the milk.

Social Learning

I use a canning jar or a repurposed jam jar for microwaving and shaking the chocolate.

Your favorite type of milk probably works just fine. I use 2% milk, and it’s excellent.  

The Chocolate…

The better the chocolate, the better the hot chocolate, so splurge on something high-quality. Easier said than done. Valrhona has always had a special place in my pallate. I used to have a couple local places to buy it, but no longer. The last time I ordered some from Amazon, I wasn’t happy with it. (I think it had seen some too-hot temperatures.) I’m probably going to have to make periodic trips to France to get it.

A lot of my friends swear by Guittard, or Scharffen Berger, but I never seem to bump into them in the places I shop, either.

So what I do – and I realize this is going to sound very culturally-elite, but what the hell … the truth is the truth – is stop by my favorite chocolate shop, and ask for blocks of their house chocolate – it’s fantastic. It is rather expensive, but it’s luscious. 

Doesn’t matter if it’s milk or dark. Doesn’t matter how sweet or bittersweet it is. Just get a chocolate that is exactly the way you like it: exactly sweet enough, exactly dark enough … whatever. If you like it on its own, it’ll make a perfect cup of chocolate without needing any sweeteners. 

Amount of Milk…

In terms of texture, the lesser amount of milk will give you something along the lines of liquid chocolate: quite thick and rich. Made for slow sipping. You could go less if you dare. The greater amount of milk will give you something still remarkable, but a bit easier to drink. Go above the max, and you’ll water down the flavor of the chocolate too much – at least in my opinion. 

In terms of quantity, the smaller amount of milk will yeild enough hot chocolate to fill a standard-size coffee cup. The larger amount will fill a mug. This hot chocolate is so rich, though, that you could stretch either the greater of smaller amount to two small servings, and they’d still be pretty satisfying. 

The Backstory

I love hot chocolate, and I have a couple of recipes for it on this blog. But it never occurred to me how insanely easy it could be! 

Speaking of expensive chocolate, when I was in college, I was broke most of the time. I ate a lot of hot dogs and bologna sandwiches. Two things came of that: first, that’s what got me started cooking. I figured that it was the least expensive way to eat well. That turned out to be 100% true. It’s not the least expensive way to eat, but it is the least expensive way to eat well. Second, I vowed that when I did have money to spend, that I was never going to feel bad about spending it on food. And I don’t have an ounce of regret about that. 

Insanely Easy Hot Chocolate

Credit for images on this page: Make It Like a Man! unless otherwise credited. This content was not solicited by anyone, nor was it written in exchange for anything. Thank you, Kesor. Thank you, ⌘+C. Make It Like a Man! is ranked by Feedspot as #13 in the Top 30 Men’s Cooking Blogs.

Keep up with us on Bloglovin’