Seymour Hot Chocolate — Stephanie H Cochrane

Hear ye, hear ye! I am not a food blogger. I like to cook, I love to eat, and I have occasionally taken photos along the way. Like, maybe once. LOWER THE BAR is what I’m trying to say.

There be PUHLENTY of hot chocolate recipes out there. Pinterest is full of recipes that are prettier, fancier, and use more ingredients than this one. But you know what I don’t want to do this time of year? Hunt down a can of sweetened condensed milk and remember to buy the special peppermint candies when I’m picking up my groceries. One million ingredients and 8 hours in the crockpot sounds like EXTRA WORK at a time when I already have extra work, thank you very much!

So I’m going to share with you the Seymour family recipe. Or it might the Jones recipe, since my Mom is the originator. Whatever. The point is, it’s easy to remember, delicious, and the best part, fast. Because the point of hot chocolate (and food in general, if you ask me) isn’t how long or complicated the preparation was. It’s how we gather around it and linger. It’s the togetherness.

When you’re primed for a good Christmas movie and someone says, “Who wants hot chocolate?” this recipe comes together in the same amount of time it takes everyone to use the bathroom and get settled in front of the TV. (This may not be quite true if you don’t have tiny, old, or pregnant bladders in your family, but what can I tell you? THE TIME IS COMING.)

Ehem. Let us begin.

Ingredients:

Milk
Cocoa powder
Sugar

Tools: Pot and whisk

Method:

First, get a pot big enough to hold however many mugs you’re making. Next, get the milk and a mug. Make sure whatever mug you use for this part is a neutral size. Not your biggest mug, not your tiniest. Just a happy medium-sized mug.

Count your people. However many people you have, fill the mug that many times with milk, and pour it in the pan. Because who wants to do math with cups and ounces and all that nonsense?

Note: use whatever kind of milk you want. It’s fine with nut milk if you roll that way. In a pinch you can do this with half water, half cream.

Look at this extra step I did to show how pretty cocoa powder can be. I am the bloggiest fooder. (Two of these mugs went in to the batch I made)

Turn your burner to medium heat. Milk scalds easily, so pay attention. You don’t have to stir constantly like a maniac, but don’t wander off. After it’s warmed a bit, add your cocoa powder. I do around two tablespoons per mug since I like my chocolate bold. Feel free to adjust, but I wouldn’t go less than one tablespoon per mug.

Here’s where your whisk comes in. The cocoa will be lumpy, and that’s not great. Whisk it around until most of the lumps are gone. The lumps get less and less stubborn the hotter the milk becomes, so keep stirring. Use whatever whisk you’ve got, but if you’re in the whisk market, this is my favorite one for things like this.

Once the cocoa is mostly dissolved, add your sugar. I like my hot chocolate to be semi-sweet like a good dark chocolate bar, so I usually do an equal ratio of sugar to cocoa powder. Sometimes less, but never more. Adjust this to your taste. Whisk until sugar is dissolved.

Doesn’t this look kinda gross? I assure you, it is the opposite of gross.

Now you just wait, stirring every now and then, until it’s good and steamy. Don’t crank the heat too high, because again, milk is touchy about that.

Ladle the chocolate into mugs, add marshmallows if you’re fancy, and commence with the Christmas movie. Or card game. Or whatever cozy activity you have planned.

In case you’re freaking out that I have not included specific amounts, here’s an example recipe based on four mug-fulls of milk: