Hot Chocolate

[Dean]

Name of Recipe: Hot Chocolate
Number of People: 1-8
Ingredients:

25g Dark Chocolate per person - adjust according to taste and cup size.  Regular dark chocolate is best.
1 cup of milk per person - low fat is better.
Marshmallows

Preparation:
1. Break up chocolate and grate on speed 8 until coarse

2. Add milk

3. Heat to 60C, speed 4 for 4min 30sec (this is enough time to heat 2 cups of milk to 60C - extend time if necessary)

4. In the last 30 seconds, increase the speed to 10 to whip up a good froth (low fat milk makes better froth)

5. Pour into heated cups over top of marshmallows.

Tips/Hints:

We have experimented with including orange zest into the recipe.  Grating it with the chocolate gets a great taste but it is a bit gritty.  Adding pieces of zest with the milk results in small chunks of zest that are too small to scoop out but to big to drink.  Putting it in the strainer basket didn't really work that well. Any suggestions?

[Thermomixer]

Thanks again Dean

I don't find zesting peel very rewarding in the TMX unless there is a fair amount of sugar or other material to help grind it.  So I use the microplane to zest into the TMX bowl.  If you want the flavour then you could use the peel in chunks and heat the milk with peel first to infuse flavour before straining off to finish ( but more work)

Need to find somebody who has good ideas on how to produce zest - every dish that I have eaten prepared in demos has had gritty texture due to the zest (custards, creams..)

With the milk, the higher the protein content too, the better the froth.  So some of the "Healthy" extra protein, no fat/low fat milks are good, there are special milks for cappuccino.  Adding a little (1/2 tsp) of lecithin to the mix should also bring up up good frothy head ( they use this for making some of the "foams" in restaurants.

[Dean]

We have found that zesting works really well if you add ice cubes.  The ice cubes work as something for the blades to chop against and the zest gets totally pulverised.  Removing the ice afterwards is another problem.

[Thermomixer]

Does  K3 get any help with these queries from HQ - somebody there may have an answer?

[Soni@]

I use a potato peeler to get thin zests of orange and lemon 

[Thermomixer]

Thanks, I'll keep trying.  Certainly still prefer the microplane, but want to convince myself that the TMX is the way to grate/zest peel.

[baf65]

Ive never had gritty custard (touch wood) , but I think that you do have to pulverise the zest with sugar to get it fine, so maybe you could do that with the hot chocolate, pulverise a bit of sugar and orange zest, then add the chocolate and pulse again

[cookie1]

Thanks for that Dean.  I appreciate the way you have listed the ingredients per person. For drinks it makes it so much easier. Maybe we'll have a cold Christmas and we can sit around drinking hot chocolate.  I could even put some of my vanilla vodka/essence in it.  Probably by then it will be straight vodka; blow the vanilla bit.

[brazen20au]

ROFL at ann! sounds like a b****y good idea (and we have a far higher chance of a cold christmas here than you!)

[cookie1]

Sure do Karen.  My brother arrives from Canberra  on Saturday.  He thought he would come home for a week to see if he can get some hot weather. He lives at Bungendore and works in the tax office over there.  We spent some time in your lovely capital a couple of months ago.
So let's see who gets to drink hot chocolate at Christmas.(Personally I think I prefer a cold wine-help to cope with batty ma in law).

A thought:  I'll give her some very sweet hot chocolate-might improve her outlook on life!

[Amanda]

Sure do Karen.  My brother arrives from Canberra  on Saturday.  He thought he would come home for a week to see if he can get some hot weather. He lives at Bungendore and works in the tax office over there.  We spent some time in your lovely capital a couple of months ago.
So let's see who gets to drink hot chocolate at Christmas.(Personally I think I prefer a cold wine-help to cope with batty ma in law).

A thought:  I'll give her some very sweet hot chocolate-might improve her outlook on life!

Perhaps use Karen's idea of adding the vodka, too!  Should improve her even more.

[cookie1]

Great idea Amanda, thanks.  My Dad always used to say 'we can choose our friends but not our relations.'

I'm sure that after a glass of wine or bubbly, I won't care too much about how nasty she is.  I am determined to simply say, "It's Christmas, let's try and be nice and not say nasty things, just for today." (May need more than one glass of that bubbly!!!)

 ) )

[brazen20au]

intravenously 

[cooky]

Who knows a good TMX recipe of making hot chocolate drink, with the possibility to serve it as viennese?
I tried to make such one the other, following the greek cookbook instructions, but it turned out to be unbearably sweet. Plus that the chantilly recipe (with sugar, cream and ice-cube) didn't work for me

[Thermomixer]

Will check the Italian sites - may be something there

What is the Chantilly recipe?  how is it done