This is the story of how I found the perfect homemade hot chocolate recipe.
It was three days after Thanksgiving and the kids were pressuring us to put up outside lights. Thing is, my not-so-handy husband was a bit grumpy about it. So I asked our ultra-handy neighbor if he would help and he was more than happy to.
What followed was like a Christmas miracle. Our neighbor brought a ladder, a plug-in thingy so the lights could be connected to our porch light, nails and extra lights for our bushes. There were adult beverages flowing and loud Christmas music blaring. The kids were excited to see us finally getting lights. At one point my husband was on the roof chuckling like Santa.
It dawned on me that Big A and Little D had nothing to drink so I ran in our place to make some hot chocolate. I don’t have a go-to recipe for hot cocoa so I looked online and found this recipe on Momables. I love recipes that call for ingredients I always have on hand: unsweetened cocoa, sugar, vanilla, and milk. It turned out perfectly. I lowered the sugar, which makes extra sense when adding whipped cream or marshmallows. I’ve made this a few times since then.
So the second part of our Christmas miracle was finding a keeper recipe for hot chocolate. This will forever be Holiday Hot Chocolate for us.
Happy Holidays to you and your family!
- ⅓ cup unsweetened cocoa
- ¼ cup sugar (or more if you like sweet)
- ⅓ cup water
- ⅛ tsp salt
- 4 cups milk of choice
- 1 tsp vanilla
- Pour cocoa, sugar, water and salt in a sauce pan over medium heat and stir continuously. Once the mixture begins to boil add the milk.
- Keep cooking on medium (gently stirring) until it gets hot but does not boil. Remove from heat and add vanilla. Serve immediately.
For more easy recipes and tips on how to serve meals to kids, check out Maryann’s book The Family Dinner Solution: How to Create a Rotation of Dinner Meals Your Family Will Love
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