Better Hot Chocolate

Speaking of cold, it's the time of year when I drink lots of hot chocolate. Not as much as I drink tea, of course, or even coffee, but more than usual. One of the things that has always disappointed me about most hot chocolate mixes is that they are thin (not very chocolaty), sugary, and kind of gray colored. A glance at the ingredients for the Nestlé Rich Chocolate Hot Cocoa Mix explains why: "Sugar, Corn Syrup, Vegetable Oil, Dairy Product Solids, Cocoa Processed with Alkali, Salt, Cellulose Gum, Sodium Caseinate, Potassium Phosphate, Sodium Alumino-Silicate, Mono- and Diglycerides, Guar Gum, Artificial Flavors, Sucralose." Uhm, to quote RaRay, "Yummo."

When my sister and I were voracious teens and my mother blanched both at how much sugar we consumed and how much the hot chocolate mix cost, she decided to create her own mix. The ingredients were: Hershey's Cocoa, powdered milk, powdered sugar. I don't remember the proportions, but with just three ingredients, it shouldn't be that hard to figure out.

I take my tea completely without additional ingredients (the way the Good Lord intends it), but I like to crap up my coffee with things like a dash of vanilla extract or cinnamon or (uh oh) nutmeg. And for hot chocolate, it's basically just open season for crap, especially when I get my very favorite hot chocolate: Starbucks (or Cosi) whole milk hot chocolate. It's my favorite because the ingredients are steamed milk, mocha syrup, vanilla syrup, and whipped cream. (I usually get the nonfat milk, however, because of the 70 calories, 90 fat calories, and 6 grams of saturated fat difference, but looking at Starbucks' nutrition info, I learn that if I went with nonfat milk and no whipped cream, I'd save another 80 calories, 60 fat calories, and the remaining 5 grams of saturated fat. Oh dear. Bye-bye, whipped cream.) Once I have my cup of wintertime joy, I crap it up with lots of cinnamon and nutmeg. MMMMmmmm.

But that's only at Starbucks or Cosi. At work I have the aforementioned Monsanto via Nestlé stuff. Thin. Sugary. Gray.

When I discovered that David had a can of Hershey's Cocoa that he wasn't using, I requisitioned it. Now when I make hot chocolate at work - it's pretty cold here a lot - I add a tablespoon of the Hershey's powder first. Now it's much more chocolaty. And less sugary. And brown. And now cocoa is the first ingredient instead of the fifth.

I can' t do the rest of the math because the can that David gave me is so old that it does not contain any nutrition information (and let's remember that the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act was implemented in 1994) and is actually a metal can. So it's sort of like having a yummy hot drink and time traveling simultaneously.