A Cooking Teens Original

After sledding or shoveling or dragging yourself home from school through the snow there’s one thing that hits the spot perfectly – hot cocoa. Think twice before you reach for that mysterious mix of faux “cocoa” ingredients in the envelope. You can whip up the real thing in the same time it takes to make the mystery milk. This hot cocoa is not only simple to make, it’s good for you, what with the calcium and protein in the milk and the antioxidants in the cocoa. (But don’t let that stop you from drinking it!) Here’s what you need:

Ingredients
1/2 cup of real cocoa powder (sometimes called baking cocoa)
1/3 cup of sugar (we used turbinado, but white sugar will do)
2 tablespoons of HOT water from the tap
3 cups of milk (we used skim but any will do)

To Prepare

Put the milk in a saucepan and turn heat to medium. In a little bowl, combine the cocoa powder and sugar, and add the hot water (you want the water to be hot enough to melt the sugar), and whisk together the thick paste until smooth. When the milk is hot to the touch (but not scalding), pour in the cocoa mixture and whisk again. Pour into two mugs and serve.

If you want to jack up the fun factor and decrease the healthy factor, add a few miniature marshmallows and a squirt of whipped cream. Then go shovel some more snow and work off those extra calories…

Enjoy!
– By Carol Leonetti Dannhauser

© Rising Moon Media, 2009