Perfect Hot Chocolate

Well, dear reader, what to write about after a busy day babysitting for my five little cousins? (Followed, I may add, by a gruelling drinks party...life is tough sometimes). Not a lot of choice, actually, because the only thing I've even come close to cooking today is a hot, steaming mug of hot chocolate. The way I do it is the old-fashioned way, in a saucepan rather than the microwave. It always makes me feel lovely and virtuous, just like a proper cook, even though at the end of the day, I'm only making a hot drink.

If I say so myself, my hot chocolate is pretty special. And I'm about to let you in on the secret.


Ingredients:

Four teaspoons of your favourite brand of hot chocolate
A mug of milk, nearly full
A tablespoon or so of cream
A tiny sprinkling of ground cinnamon, mixed with a little bit more of the hot chocolate powder
Possibly a quarter of a vanilla pod, although this is still filed under 'experimental' for me!


Recipe:

Measure out your mug of milk, add the cream, then pour it into a saucepan and set it on a mild heat to warm. You can add the vanilla pod to this if you're using it. Sadly, I've never managed to get the concentration quite right.

Vanilla is really amazingly nasty when over-intensified.

Pop the hot chocolate powder into the now-empty mug, with maybe just a teeeeeeeny spot of cinnamon. But I do mean TEENY. Then spoon in four teaspoons of milk from the pan. Mix until it forms a paste - you'll think it isn't going to, then suddenly it will.

Now, turn up the heat on the milk and cream mixture. You're going to need to watch it very, very carefully. First it'll seem to become a bit thicker and more syrupy. Next, it'll begin to boil. This is traditionally supposed to be bad for milk, but I've never found it does a terrible amount of damage. Just before it shows signs of boiling, it'll become a tiny bit frothy on top. This froth is your gold dust. While it's still there on top, but before the milk expands like a mad thing up the sides of the pan (which is the next stage), take the pan off the heat.

The same effect may be achieved by warming your milk then frothing it up with one of those lurid electric hot chocolate whisk jobs, but I find this is hard to get right. It also creates an absolute devil of a mess when you inevitably get it wrong.

Either way, pour your slightly frothy milk into the mug with the hot chocolate paste, then give it a mix. The mix is important - you want to stir up the paste on the bottom of the mug without disturbing the froth on top. So stick your spoon right in to the bottom and give it a gentle, wiggly sort of stir, trying to move the bottom of the spoon rather than the top. It's a bit of a knack, but you'll get the hang of it.

Now, sprinkle your beverage with the mixed cinnamon and chocolate powder, grab your mug firmly by the handle, and put your feet up.

This is going to take some time.