This Week’s Bit of String: A great cup of hot chocolate
What’s the best hot chocolate you’ve had? I once had a wonderful hot chocolate in Paris after a 3-hour queue and a walk through the Catacombs. It was made with proper melted chocolate. (The drink, that is. Not the Catacombs.)
More recently, I’ve enjoyed a lovely, thick cup of cocoa at a craft market a hilly 4-mile hike away. And a Terry’s chocolate orange hot drink at Costa after a canalside wander. These were moments of well-earned bliss and I thought, more of these times, please.
I still like the generic, grocery store equivalent of Swiss Miss packets mixed with hot water like I had as a kid in the US. I have that cocoa while there for the summer, countering the early morning chill in a rustic cabin or at a campsite. I love my Cadbury drinking chocolate here in the UK though, despite my dislike for Cadbury Dairy Milk–too cheap and sickly.
When I first studied in the UK, I bought some Cadbury drinking chocolate powder. I was indignant that it required mixing with milk, as that meant spending more money. But when I complied with the carton’s demands, it was well worth it. This remains a favourite of mine, or I can use our Hotel Chocolat Velvetiser to make creamy mugs of salted caramel clementine, or black forest hot chocolate.
Hot chocolate is all around us, even if it really doesn’t fit in the song Richard Curtis likes so much. These days, it feels a tad doubtful love is all around us, and while Christmas will soon be all around also, I’m resolved to maximise the cosy hot chocolate moments by having some variety of it every day until Christmas. Probably during the brief time off following it, too.
Changing Speed
So I’m taking on a hot chocolate challenge. One of my work buddies is completing a challenge where she does 100 squats every day this month. My husband has grown a Movember moustache with a 1980s, Ned Flanders curvature. Me, I’m going to drink hot chocolate on a daily basis. Life is fairly challenging anyway, for all of us.
A couple months ago, I started on the 100 Days of Writing Challenge. I wanted to see if, while between projects, I could write bits of fiction with the same degree of regularity I wrote my daily scribbles. I really enjoyed it, but grew exhausted with the end of the first term at school, and the disheartening election. I still haven’t figured out what you write when the world looks so wrong.
Fiction is surely the answer long-term, and I’m still making up figments, but other things occupy my head. Hot chocolate is the answer at the time being. It’s also a way of re-embracing where I am. I can’t move back to the US to be with my family now. I must maintain a safe place here in the UK in case they need to come here. Therefore, let the Cadbury and Hotel Chocolat flow.
Tips and Exceptions
I’m taking this challenge seriously, but allowing flexibility, should anyone else choose to partake. On Friday nights, one might substitute another nice drink, like a Snowball with fizzy lemonade and Avocaat. Middle of a busy week when your throat is tired from repeating yourself time and again to Year 10s, perhaps some Ben and Jerry’s.
If you’d like to join in, you may already be a hot chocolate expert yourself. But here are my tips for the newly initiated.
Toppings: Marshmallows are good, of course. I’m not a fan of delving through a mountain of whipped cream to reach my hot drink, but love marshmallow Fluff, the American spread you can get in jars (a British Amazon vendor sells 4-packs at a decent price). Fluff keeps your hot chocolate really warm and the extra sweetness melts at an ideal pace.
Non-Dairy: When you’re low on milk or if you have one of those awful seasonal colds rendered phlegmier by dairy products, hot cocoa is still a nice treat. Or some of the chai latte mixes you can now get, that mix up with water. I enjoy that sort of thing with a swirl of Hershey’s chocolate syrup over the top (when I can grab some from Lidl).
Non-Dairy part 2: If you only have drinking chocolate that’s supposed to be mixed with milk but don’t have milk, you CAN mix it with hot water, but I recommend adding a pinch of salt. It’s quite sickly just mixing with water.
Generics: I highly recommend Lidl’s special holiday chai mix, the Spiced Plum variety. Also, Tesco’s drinking chocolate mix is a bit cheaper than Cadbury, and has a nice hint of cinnamon.
Booze: Baileys is great, but you can add any other splash of liquor to hot chocolate. I like to put in some Malibu or Amaretto. Cointreau is also good, and Drambuie when you want to counterbalance some of the sweetness.
Do you have any recommendations for me? Bon appetit!