It's hot chocolate season. From Mexican hot chocolate to hot chocolate with homemade marshmallows, there's a lot to be happy about. But even more interesting are ways to add flavor to your hot chocolate naturally.
Last week on Gilt Taste, writer Adam Erace detailed ways to add herbs, fruit, spices and booze to your hot chocolate to give it an infused, rich flavor. The gist of his tip is to allow flavors to steep in the milk using a strainer or by creating a little sachet using cheesecloth and butcher's twine.
Erace notes, "Your imagination is the limit for what goes into these sachets." My favorite part about all of this is the move away from flavored syrups and a complete move towards natural ingredients like bunches of mint, a handful of toasted almonds, or orange peel. The flavors are truer and the process is more creative. I can't stop thinking about a hazelnut infused cocoa or a chile pepper infused Mexican hot chocolate.
Get the Hot Chocolate Formula: Gilt Taste
Related: Is it Cocoa or Cake? Baked Hot Chocolate!
(Image: Megan Gordon)
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Sichuan peppercorns are excellent in hot chocolate.
I love a dram of something in hot chocolate. Drambuie is my favorite at the moment.
I also love spicy hot chocolate! I actually melted a tablet of mexican hot chocolate to make brownies!! Turned out fiendishly good!
Sometimes I add a little cinnamon. Or a few drops of Tabasco sauce. Or both! Mmm. And a splash of coffee is nice too.
The infusion technique is great for any milk or cream-based dessert, like custard, flan, ice cream or cream anglaise. It's also a good way to flavor truffles and chocolate sauces--infuse the flavor into the cream and strain before adding it to the chocolate. (I prefer to add the spices, tea or whatever to the milk/cream loose and simply strain--less fussy than tying it up in a sachet and you get a fuller infusion.)
Here's a super easy and lovely one - throw a chai tea bag into your hot chocolate and brew it like normal. So good, and since chai tea bags are vastly inferior to homemade or coffeeshop chai, it's a good way to use them up :)
I like spices and/or herbs and/or peppers in my hot chocolate, but what gets my blood pumping is swirling in some Nutella or hazelnut butter (usually needs a quick spin with an immersion blender), one can never have enough hot chocolate! Another thing I love is taking a hibiscus cinnamon or lemon rose teabag (Peet's Coffee) to infuse hot chocolate... it makes a really lovely chocolatey floral hard for most people to figure out.
Williams-Sonoma each year has some special cook's tool made exclusively for their company by All Clad, a few years ago was a straining ball attached to a spoon handle available for use a short time. If there were a raging fire, I'd get my cat out, then I'd go back for those. I don't know why I love them So much but you can approximate the same with a tea ball for infusion - try to find one that hooks over the edge of your pot.