3 great ways to make cocoa

As I'm sipping a cup of morning cocoa, I'm reflecting on the various ways I've made hot cocoa over the years and the ones that really stand out. I'm not talking about cocoa from a packet - this is cocoa from scratch.

The first great cocoa was in college when my friends and I discovered that if you made the standard recipe on the Hershey's cocoa tin (unsweetened cocoa, NOT chocolate milk mix) with reconstituted evaporated milk (NOT sweetened condensed milk) instead of regular milk it tasted particularly creamy. We used a fairly standard ratio of unsweetened cocoa to sugar and a pinch of salt and crammed the mug full of mini-marshmallows. The cocoa got even better when we discovered Hershey's European style cocoa which is difficult to find the farther you get from PA.

Then there is Bonnie's cocoa which I learned to make from a friend when I was in graduate school... 

Take a scoop of your favorite chocolate friendly ice cream (not too big, perhaps half a mug's worth) and an overflowing heaping spoon of Droste cocoa. Add some hot water, perhaps a half a cup, and stir until the ice cream melts and the cocoa powder dissolves then top off the mug with more hot water. Bonnie is fond of using coffee or mocha flavored ice cream but has made this for me with all kinds of thing including Cherry Garcia (which leaves cherry lumps in the bottom of the mug but is still quite tasty if you like chocolate cherries). I've also made this successfully with Hershey's European style cocoa which is a reasonable (and far less expensive) substitution for Droste. This is a less sweet than your average cocoa making it a nice option for dark chocolate lovers.

Finally, my latest method for cocoa. Take about 3 rounded teaspoons of either a European sipping cocoa (like Shokinag) or your standard ratio of unsweetened cocoa powder to sugar (I have vastly reduced the amount of sugar that I add to my cocoa and use about 2 rounded teaspoons of cocoa powder and just one rounded teaspoon of sugar) plus an optional pinch of salt). Add boiling water a very little bit at a time and stir until smooth. Add a bit more water if you need to - you want the result to resemble chocolate ganache, not clay. Slowly add more hot water or hot milk while stirring, once it becomes more drink-like the hot liquid can be added all at once. Finish off with a splash of cream, half and half or evaporated milk. I'm a dark chocolate person so experiment with the sugar, you may well want more.

I've been experimenting with making cocoa from bars of good chocolate based on the last method. The trick is making a smooth paste so the chocolate dissolves. I've found this works best in an oversized teacup so you can use the back of the spoon to smooth the chocolate and one can use a microwave in 10 second increments but you have to add liquid or you risk scorching the chocolate.