The Best Hot Chocolate Ever (2 Ways)

I've traveled the world and I finally figured out how to make the perfect hot chocolate. Hot chocolate isn't just a pastime. It's a religion. When the cool weather kicks in, you want hot chocolate. If there were any hot chocolate you're going to make, it's going to be one of these two. I'm providing two different variations for you, just so you have flexibility, but I will say my preferred one is the second one, which you'll see in a second. So let's make this, shall we? We're going to start by making our homemade toppings, which include whipped cream, marshmallows, then we'll follow that with an easy, instant hot chocolate, and then last but not least, my very best of all time hot chocolate recipe. You cannot have hot chocolate without whipped cream. You could skip this part. You could serve your guests or even yourself with just a plain old cup of hot chocolate, but I promise you, you're serving other people. They're going to sit down and they're going to be drinking and they're going to go, this is pretty good. I can't believe they didn't get me whipped cream. So make it two cups of cold, heavy whipping cream. You don't need any fancy gadgets. You don't need a hand blender, although it is very helpful to have a hand blender. You could just use a good old-fashioned whisk. So you're going to start by beating this vigorously. Your arm starts to get tired. You can always switch to the other arm. This is a great time to practice ambidextrous qualities. Is it ambidextrous? Ambidextrous qualities. Does this look natural? Because it feels like I'm f***ing fighting for my life. So we're starting to thicken up a little bit. Now we're going to add three tablespoons of sugar, not all at once, just a little bit at a time. So I'm going to start with about a tablespoon and we're going to keep beating. All right, it's thickening up a little bit more, another tablespoon. Whisk that in there. We're going to add the remaining tablespoon. All right, so we're pretty much there. You don't want to over beat this because if you over beat it, it'll get too stiff. And to me, a good whipped cream is going to be very soft peak. You can see that's like a Jimmy Neutron hairstyle right there. That's what you're going for. I'm adding two teaspoons of vanilla bean paste and then you're just going to carefully whisk that in there. I don't want to introduce any more air to this. Just a gentle whisk to get it to know this beautiful whipped cream. We're going to actually pop this into a piping bag with a star tip attached to it. We have our whipped cream. We'll keep this cold while we make our hot chocolate. But before that, let's talk marshmallows. If you don't want to make it, that's fine. Go buy your own. Making your own, though, you can control the flavor. You can control the texture. You can control the size of them. You can make them really mini. You can make them really big. It's also cool to be able to serve them to your guests and go, hey, there's marshmallows in there. I made those. And then they're going to fall in love with you. Half cup of water into the bowl of a stand mixer or a large bowl if you're using a hand blender. Then you're going to add three packets of unflavored powdered gelatin and you're just going to sprinkle that directly on top. You don't need to mix that. You don't need to stir it. It will hydrate on its own. But that's it while we make our sugar syrup over here. One and a half cups of sugar going into a small sauce pot. One and a quarter cup or 385 grams of light corn syrup, not dark corn syrup. And finally, a half cup of water. So we're going to stir all those ingredients together. And the goal here is just to get everything homogenous. What I don't want is a giant layer of dried sugar sitting at the bottom. All right, we're going to set it to a medium heat at a tiny little pinch of salt. And I'm going to bring that up to a boil. Once that comes to a boil, you're going to let it cook and reduce until it reaches 240 degrees Fahrenheit. Cut the heat off and very carefully transfer this. You don't want to get this on your skin. It is unrelentlessly hot. You will regret it. Please be careful. We have our bloomed gelatin whisk attachment. Now we're going to lift this bad boy up. We're going to start it on low speed. And this entire time, you're going to carefully, slowly drip down your sugar syrup down the side of the bowl. Once it starts to melt the gelatin and everything is beginning to emulsify, you can increase the heat to medium, continuing to pour your sugar syrup, then increase to high while slowly adding the remainder of your syrup. Once everything's been added, you're just going to keep beating that for a few minutes until your mixture is thick, creamy, and white and holds a light, soft peak. Now at that stage, you can lower your speed to like medium and add in two teaspoons of vanilla extract. To make these mini, I'm going to scoop this into a large piping bag. Baking sheet. I like to add a touch of spray oil to the bottom so that the parchment that is then going to go on top sticks. You're going to lightly spray the parchment and then we have a mixture of one-to-one potato starch and powdered sugar. Give that a generous dusting. You honestly kind of can't have too much because most of it will shake off of the marshmallow. You just want enough so it doesn't stick. Piping time. So we need to get an optimal size hole here. At this stage, you can pipe this on as thick or as thin as you want. If you go super thin, then you're going to end up with really mini marshmallows. Nice little line all the way across your baking sheet. You're going to rinse and repeat that until you've lined essentially your whole baking sheet. I fit about six on here. You might be able to squeeze seven, but I wouldn't push your luck. Take your starch mixture and then give them a light dusting over the top. This is going to help set that shape and again, it's also going to help prevent them from sticking after they've cooled. Let these sit for at least four hours, ideally five, and even better overnight. Now they've been rested at room temperature. Now make sure to roll them back and forth to then get the edges coated as well. Just making sure there's no stickage. To cut these, you can do two at a time. I'm going to start with just one for visual sake and you may need to dust your knife. This is like a roughly a half inch thick, so we're going to cut half inch segments to keep these equal. Toss them together to get them coated in that starch. You have your own homemade mini marshmallows. Finally, hot chocolate. The first one we have is the easy cocoa powder version. This isn't the best one, it's the easiest. One cup of your finest cocoa powder, one cup of powdered sugar, a quarter cup of light brown sugar, and a half teaspoon of fine sea salt. Carefully whisk that together. This will get into the air. You may cough on it, that's okay. That's it, that's your cocoa mix. You can add cinnamon, you can add cayenne, you can add whatever you want to this, but this is the base. The benefit of this recipe is you can store all of this in an airtight container like a mason jar and you essentially have your own instant hot cocoa mix. Now the ratio is important though, so here's how you make a quarter cup of mix for every cup of hot milk. I'm just going to slowly, gently mix that and then you can just it. You can take your homemade marshmallows, pop those on top. Yeah, they float. All right, I'm gonna go to the hospital now because that was so hot. It's really nice. It doesn't taste extravagant, it's just a solid hot chocolate that's easy. So let's make the one that is the ultimate hot chocolate. How is this so good? Well, it starts with one pound of 60 to 70 percent dark chocolate and you're just going to very thinly chop it. It doesn't need to be like paper thin, but you do want it thin enough so that it sort of starts to crumble a little bit. This is going to help a lot in the melting process. Once you have that all chopped, I like to give it one more once over the other direction. Again, just to help it get as fine as I can get it. We have three and a half cups of whole milk going into a sauce pot, followed by a quarter cup of heavy whipping cream, quarter cup of sugar, half teaspoon of salt, and then one teaspoon of vanilla paste. You can use vanilla extract, that's fine. I'm using vanilla paste just because it adds a little more fragrance. Heat that over medium heat. Give it a little whisk just to dissolve that sugar. You're gonna heat it just until steamy and hot, but not boil it. Cut off the heat. Now, we're gonna add all of our chopped chocolate. Give it a little shake to distribute evenly, and then you're just gonna let this sit for about two minutes, and then you'll continue whisking. And at first it's gonna feel like it's not coming together, but just keep mixing, just keep waiting, and if it's not fully melted, you just pop it on low heat, stirring frequently until everything's melted and it's hot throughout. Be careful not to boil it, you will break the emulsion. Now, every chocolate is gonna be a little bit different in how gritty it is, so if you want it extra smooth, you can take an immersion blender and just give it a light immersion blendering. That'll get it even more glossy. To make it even more perfectly non-gritty and smooth, you can pass it through a very, very fine mesh strainer. Now, we serve. This is obviously inspired by our visit to Caret. I love the way they served it. I think it made hot chocolate feel like a special treat. You give it a nice pour. You have your whipped cream, which you just take your spoon and give yourself a nice generous dollop right in the center. Look at that. There's only one thing left to do. Out of all the hot chocolates I've ever made, it is the best hot chocolate I have ever made and it will be the best hot chocolate you've ever made in your life. It's beauty in simplicity. I know I say it a lot, but this really is. There's not a bunch of ingredients in this. This is all about the chocolate. It exudes the flavor in a way that is beyond your wildest imagination. You have to try it. Whether you do the more ridiculous one that's all chocolate or just the powdered mix, you'll be happy either way. You've got your homemade marshmallows, you've got your beautiful whipped cream, but more importantly, you have a top-tier hot chocolate. Love you so much. Subscribe. See you later.