Get some cocoa powder, coconut milk, and other milk of choice on your way home from work/school/etc. because you’re going to want to celebrate…
National Hot Chocolate Day!
I heard about the holiday on twitter earlier and decided to whip up something for the special event. I actually tried googling to learn more about the holiday, but as it turns out (like it does with many of these food or at least lesser-known holidays) there are multiple National Hot Chocolate Days. But who needs a legit holiday to celebrate something as simple as hot chocolate, right?
That’s what I’m going with…
WIth my newly-found excuse to make hot chocolate, I decided to work up a recipe for something else inspired by twitter – coconut milk hot chocolate. I tried this once a year or so ago when I heard a twitter friend mention it on a particularly cold and dreary day, except I used 100% coconut milk for the recipe. As it turns out, too much of a good thing really can be…well, not so good. The full-coconut milk hot chocolate was just so-so. I found it to be too thick and rich (perhaps because I was using the canned version instead of the carton type?).
Lesson learned. This time, I followed my trick for making oatmeal with coconut milk – I went 50% coconut milk and 50% something else. When I make oatmeal, the other 50% is usually water. Today, for the hot cocoa, I decided to use some rice milk.
And since I was feeling really festive, I also whipped up (literally) some whipped cream for the top. Mmm…
Coconut Milk Hot Chocolate
It doesn’t have to be National Hot Chocolate Day for you to enjoy this cozy drink. Coconut Milk Hot Chocolate yields a tasty twist on this classic dessert beverage. As for making the drink from scratch…For most of my life I used packaged hot chocolate mixes to make hot chocolate, but from-scratch really takes very little additional effort. I made mine stovetop, but you could easily adjust the recipe to make it quicker in the microwave. Oh, and if you’re feeling particularly lazy, you can try skipping the step of mixing the cocoa powder in a separate bowl by putting it straight in the pot…however, I find that usually creates lumps making the extra step useful. And I only used 2 teaspoons of cocoa powder, which I thought tasted plenty rich, true chocoholics may want to add 1-2 additional teaspoons.
Time: 15 minutes
Serves: 1 (but you can easily multiply for fellow chocoholics)
*Vegetarian, Vegan if you use vegan milks and whipped cream*
Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup coconut milk (canned), or sub carton version for a lighter flavor or sub other milk of choice if you really want
- 1/2 cup rice milk, plus 1-2 tablespoons (or sub other milk of choice, but please read above story before using coconut here, too)
- 2 rounded teaspoons unsweetened cocoa powder
- sweetener of choice, to taste (I used about 1 teaspoon of agave syrup)
- whipped cream, optional, for serving
Directions:
- Place coconut milk and 1/2 cup rice milk in a small pot over medium low heat.
- Meanwhile, place cocoa powder and extra tablespoon of rice milk in a small bowl. Whisk until a paste/thick mixture forms and powder is absorbed. Add additional tablespoon of rice milk, if needed.
- Whisk cocoa mixture into milk mixture. Heat till hot but not boiling.
- Pour into a mug and top with whipped cream, if using.
- Serve and enjoy once the drink is cool enough to safely drink.
Enjoy!
***
PS: It’s the last day of Eat in Month! Gotta admit…I can’t wait to eat out again! lol
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Reader question: Are you celebrating National Hot Chocolate Day today? Do you prefer “regular” hot chocolate or a particular flavor?
Whether you really love the flavor of peppermint or you’re just trying to figure out what the heck to do with all the leftover Christmas candy sitting around your house, these Peppermint Snow/Dough Balls are sure to fit the bill.
I made two variations of the recipe – one with candy pieces on top in frosting (pictured above) and another that is more like a snow ball with candy inside the cookie and powdered sugar on top.
The key to both is the use of crushed Christmas candy (candy canes, peppermint swirls, etc.).
While both cookies feature peppermint extract instead of vanilla…
…the first is more like a sugar dough ball as the base with the candy sprinkled on top of creamy, sugary glaze.
The latter gets the candy mixed into the batter and then gets dunked into powdered sugar.
So, it looks like a snow ball!
I taste-tested both…
…and I took some to a friend’s house for taste testing. The result of which version was better came down to personal preference.
Bake up a batch of each and decide for yourself! You can even split a single batch of cookies in half and try both methods (at least that’s what I did!).
Peppermint Snow/Dough Balls Recipe
This recipe makes great use of leftover Christmas candy. Just crush it up and choose one of the two methods below to add it to a peppermint-infused sugar dough ball. You can either bake the cookie, top it with icing, and sprinkle candy pieces on top (this is the method described in the main recipe) or stir the candy pieces into the cookie batter, bake, and dunk the cookie in powdered sugar to make it look like a snow ball (this is explained in the alternate directions below)!
You can even make these well ahead of time and freeze them till you’re ready to bake them, which makes these dough balls great for entertaining.
Inspired by Annie the Baker, adapted from my Sugar Cookie Dough Ball Recipe
*Vegan options listed*
Prep time: 1 hour 30 minutes (this includes 1 hour required to freeze the dough after initial prep)
Bake time: 10 minutes
Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp baking powder
- 1/8 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 cup plus 1 tbsp granulated sugar
- 3/4 stick butter, softened/room-temp (or vegan butter alternative)
- 1 egg (or flaxseed-egg)
- 1/2 tsp peppermint extract
- Simple Icing, recipe follows
- Crushed peppermint candy, about 1/2 cup
- Powdered sugar, about 1 cup – this is only needed for method #2 – see Alternate Preparation below
Directions (Scoop then freeze method):
- Prepare baking sheets with parchment paper.
- In a large bowl, whisk together flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda.
- In a medium bowl, mix sugar and butter till creamy. (I used a handheld mixer, but you could probably just use a whisk). Add egg and peppermint extract and mix till combined.
- Mix wet into the dry. Note: it will appear there is not enough liquid for the amount of dry ingredients, but continue mixing. It will form into a dough, it will just be a firm dough. See tips on this post (click) for combining. Careful to not overmix. I’ve found pressing the back of a firm, medium/large spatula into the dough seems to work well. Also note: if you want to go with method #2 for this recipe, see alternate directions below because you would mix the candy in here for that alternate version.
- Use a small sorbet scoop to scoop out dough into small mounds. Spread evenly on a baking sheet so mounds don’t touch. Freeze for at least 30 minutes, though 1 hour is better if you can wait that long. I often leave mine in the freezer overnight or till I’m ready to eat them.
- Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees F. Bake balls for 10-11 minutes, depending on how set you want your centers. If you use egg, and you’re paranoid like me, you can use a meat thermometer to ensure the centers of the balls are at least 160 degrees F, which many web sites say is the safe temp to eat eggs. The tips should just be turning lightly brown.
- Let your dough balls cool to room temperature.
- Top with a bit of Simple Icing (see next recipe) and top with crushed candy.
- Enjoy!
Alternate Preparation:
- Follow steps #1-4 above. Stir in crushed candy pieces.
- Follow steps #5-6 above. Pour some powdered sugar into a bowl. When cookies are still warm, but safe to touch, dip tops into the powdered sugar shaking excess off. Note: some of the sugar will be absorbed by the cookie.
- Enjoy!
Simple Icing
I’ve tried making this icing with water before, but milk just tastes so much richer and creamier. You’ll just have to be a little more careful since you’re using dairy. If you’re planning to leave the cookies out for a long time, you may want to consider substituting water. Either way, start with the directions below and add additional liquid as needed to get the icing to the thickness you want.
*Vegan options listed*
Total time: 5 minutes
Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon milk (or vegan substitute)
Directions (Scoop then freeze method):
- In a medium bowl, combine sugar and milk and whisk until smooth.
- Add additional milk if needed.
Peppermint-goodness. I may have to actually bake these before Christmas next year!
Hubby and I spent most of today cleaning up the house and prepping food for company. I made things more fun with my Lady Gaga iTunes playlist and the Dance channel on my Pandora. Good music makes almost everything better, right?
We had friends over tonight for Poker Night!
I managed to squeeze in a Zumba class beforehand thanks to getting most of baking done earlier in the day and utilizing my slow cooker for the main event.
The spread.
I was planning to make chili and corn muffins for the main eats, so I asked hubby to find something we could just throw in the oven for appetizers. He found a Tex-mex mix of 3 appetizers at Costco, and they came in quite handy. The boys loved them!
And I was really impressed hubby made this veggie platter all on his own. It was his suggestion, and he even bought the veggies individually and chopped them himself. I realize that’s not a big deal to most people, but I thought it was awesome.
I made my slow cooker chili recipe for the main eats.
And I also made these corn muffins (and turned one batch into bread).
And I made about a hundred of these oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Not really. But I usually bake in smaller batches, so when this recipe said it would make 3-4 dozen, it seemed like I had so many more cookies than I’m used to baking. I had to do them on 3 pans (2 in one round and 1 in another) with about 6 turns in the oven.
We had games on…
…but poker was the main event.
In fact, they’re still playing as I type.
I’m just glad we got all of our cleaning done today so I can relax tomorrow. I’m planning to take things easy for most of the day. I never seem to have much down time, so I’m trying to enjoy it while I still can! 
As for tomorrow night…we’re having a low key night at our neighbor’s house to celebrate New Year’s Eve.
What are you doing for New Year’s Eve?
Brie. Baguette. Vino.
That was my Facebook update after I finished my last (crazy-stressful-busy) work day of 2011. Phew! It’s also what I was enjoying immediately after shutting down my work laptop.
After enjoying one Christmas with my family and one with hubby’s, hubby and I celebrated our Christmas tonight.
I experimented with a new risotto recipe that I’m hoping to share with you guys soon. It was inspired by a visit to Olive Garden a couple years ago where I ordered the shrimp and asparagus risotto. I enjoyed the mindless stirring after staring at 6 databases and roughly 25 excel spreadsheets all day during work. lol
Hubby decided that since I was in charge of dinner, he’d be in charge of dessert.
He brought home two caramel apples from Rocky Mountain Chocolate, and we dug into the pecan-chocolate one tonight.
And tonight’s Riesling tasted extra-delicious in the new wine glasses my MIL gave us for Christmas. I’ve been wanting stemless wine glasses for years, and I’m really excited to serve wine to guests using them!
I’m feeling very blessed to have enjoyed three beautiful Christmases this year. I hope your holidays were lovely, too.
What was your favorite Christmas, Hanukkah, or other holiday gift and/or memory from this year?
