The Best Hot Chocolate

Featured Pro: Curtis Stone
Category: Cooking
Time: 4:03


CURTIS STONE: Hey, I’m Curtis Stone, and I’ve got a GMC Trade Secret which is all about how to make the perfect hot chocolate.

Now, if you’ve ever enjoyed a hot cocoa before, just wait till you taste this. There’s a couple of little secrets for turning it from a decent hot chocolate to something incredible.

Over here I’ve got a pot of milk. Now, I’m going to add some cream to it. The only rule that you have to remember, because everyone’s going to be making a different amount, is double the amount of milk to cream. Okay, so if you’ve got a cup of milk, you’re looking at half a cup of cream. I’m going to be making a bit more than that, but I’m going to combine those two and then make them nice and hot.

So just put it over a gentle heat. You don’t want to boil it, because you’re talking about cream and milk, okay, so you don’t want to separate the fat from the cream. So if you boil it, that’s what’ll happen. So just bring it up to a gentle simmer.

Now, into this you can put basically any flavor that you like. This is the secret. The key to this is using good quality chocolate; okay, no cocoa powder – chocolate. We’re going to sweeten it up with a little bit of sugar. But the real secret is what flavors you can put into it.

Now, what I’m going to do today is make one with mint. I love fresh mint. So what I’m going to do is just screw it up into a tight little ball, just chop it like that, and I’m going to pop that straight into my milk and cream, and then I’m going to add sugar. And then what I’m going to show you is this little guy. And basically what that does is helps you to froth things up. So you can see how it sort of froths up a little bit of that milk and cream – beautiful.

So the next thing, of course, is chocolate. So we’ve got this beautiful chocolate. Now, I like good dark chocolate, which is quite bitter, so it’s not super sweet. And I go for the 70 percent. Now, if you like something different, then use something different. You know, it’s all about whatever chocolate you like to eat, you’ll like the flavor of it in this.

Get a little spoon. So just have a little taste. Ah, good. It’s nice and sweet, but it’s not sickly. It’s not too much. You don’t want it to be too sweet. Yeah, perfect. Once I’m satisfied with that flavor, what I’m going to do is take all that mint back out and get rid of it. You know, the odd little piece isn’t going to hurt you, but what you don’t want is loads and loads of mint floating around in there.

Okay, so once we’ve got it to this point, what we do next is we turn the heat off and you add your chocolate. Now, it’s important to turn your heat off, because you don’t want to cook the chocolate. You just want to melt it. So get yourself a big spoon and just give it a good stir, and then the heat from the cream and the milk is going to just gently melt your chocolate.

So I’m going to switch back to this guy, because this is what’s going to make it go really nice and frothy. And what you’re looking for in the color of the hot chocolate is that it’s all the same. You don’t want little pieces, because if you see little bits of chocolate, then it still hasn’t quite melted.

All right, so you want to get it nice and frothy. And then pick up your mug. Now, I’ve got a nice clear one so you can see right into it, which is going to look beautiful. Pick up your hot chocolate and just pour it into your mug. Beautiful. Now, don’t pour it all the way to the top. Okay, leave yourself a little bit of space. You know what? This is my favorite part. I’m going to go for some ice cream. Now, I’ve got a vanilla or a chocolate. It’s up to you, whatever you’re feeling. If you feel like being super-indulgent, go for the chocolate. That’s what I’m going to do. I was going to go for the vanilla, but I changed my mind at the last minute. So just get a scoop of that ice cream. And I’m just going to float that right into the top, okay.

And just to finish it off, just in case it wasn’t decadent enough, you want to get yourself a little bit of real whipped cream, just a little bit, and put a little float of whipped cream on top of that. I’ve got a little sprig of mint left, which looks so pretty. So you can put that in, and even a little bit of chocolate that I’m just going to grate over that little bit of cream.

So there you have it, the best hot chocolate in the whole wide world. I’m Curtis Stone, and that’s your GMC Trade Secret.