Home Made Hot Chocolate

When the weather gets colder, its nice to curl up on the sofa with a good book and a hot drink -how wonderfully cliche. My absolute favourite hot drink has to be hot chocolate!

To be quite honest I find powdered hot chocolate disgusting and strangely salty at times! Yet I willingly put up with it until I discovered the way to make "real" hot chocolate. Try and buy good quality cooking chocolate so you dont have to worry about all those chemicals and e-numbers. 

If you make hot chocolate quite often, prepare the chocolate in bulk then making this will be just as simple as using the powdered stuff.

Home Made Hot Chocolate

Serves 2

~2 cups of milk 

  -you can use skim milk, but if you are drinking hot chocolate and worrying about your figure at the same time there is something wrong!

~1/2 tsp of vanila sugar  

  -If you dont have any Vanilla sugar just 2 drops of vanilla essence is fine

  -you make vanilla sugar by putting a vanilla pod in some sugar. The longer the pod is in, the yummier it will taste!

~A sprinkle of cinnamon 

  -just to add a little holiday warmth

~75 grams Good Quality Cooking Chocolate

  -Remember your hot chocolate will taste like your chocolate, so if you prefer dark chocolate go for it! Don't feel limited by the massive amounts of milk chocolate out there. Choose the type of chocolate you love!

Firstly dice up the chocolate as finely as you can, the smaller the pieces the easier they will melt. 

In a small saucepan heat up the milk to near boiling- milk doesn't boil like water does, there are no obvious signs. If your not sure if its hot enough just put it on the flame on med. and wait for aprox. 5 mins-  Whisk in the cinnamon and Vanilla sugar/essence, when throughly combined start adding the chocolate slowly. Keep whisking while you add the chocolate or you will end up with burnt chocolate stuck to the bottom. When you have added all the chocolate the milk should have turned a deep chocolatey brown. Serve hot! 

Optional: you could add whipped cream/diced nuts/chocolate sauce/milk foam on top when served to add a little omph! 

Hazelnut and Vanilla Shortbread

Hello World

I have decided to publish some of my favourite recipes for the world too see! Enjoy:

Hazelnut and Vanilla Shortbread

Shortbread is a fickle thing, it must have a delicate touch! Remember when you blend your nuts and butter not to go crazy or you just might end up with a hazelnut butter! Also when you are mixing in the flour not to overmix it or your shortbread will turn out heavy and dense.

This recipe is originally from the south china morning post by Susan Jung however we have added our own style to it.

100 grams of whole hazelnuts

90 grams of icing sugar

1/2 a vanilla pod (if you cant get your hands on a pod you can always substitute it for a few drops of vanilla essence)

1/2 tsp of fine sea salt

225 grams of unsalted butter (Try and let the butter soften at room temp. dont let your mixer suffer! =P)

250 grams of all purpose plain flour

Caster sugar

100 grams of cooking chocolate (chopped up!)

First things first preheat your oven to 180 degrees (or 356 farenheit) pop the hazelnuts into a tray and bake for around 10-15mins until you can smell their nutty aroma and their skins loosen. While they are still relatively hot rub the nuts in some paper towel to remove their skins.

Scrape the seeds out of the vanila pod by running your knife -carefully- down one side then sliding it along scooping up the sticky black seeds. Put the seeds, icing sugar, butter and 2/3 the nuts together in the food mixer. Blend into a fine mixture, then transfer the mixture into a bowl. Add the flour and mix lightly until incorporated.

Lightly grease a tray 20com by 22cm aprox. and smoothly line with tin foil. Pat the mixture into the tray around 2cm thick. At regular intervals poke holes with a fork then sprinkle with granulated sugar.

Bake for 30-45mins until firm and golden brown.

Allow the shortbread to cool sightly then lift away from the tin foil and place it on a chopping board, then using a serrated knife slice into rectangles or squares.

Melt the chocolate using a water bath. Dont let any of the water get into the chocolate while melting. Lattice or drizzle the chocolate on top of the shortbread. Dice up the rest of the hazelnuts to sprinkle on top.

There you go! Hazelnut and Vanilia Shortbread!

(Photo By Thomas Latter)