Skip to main content

The Even Better Best Cocoa Mix Batch Recipe

One of the things I love about cooking from scratch is that I can customize recipes to my own preferences.  For instance, hot cocoa mix.

For a long time, I would just go to the store and buy the biggest can of cocoa mix I could find at the best price per ounce.  I really didn't think it had the best flavor, and I knew it was totally overloaded with sugar, but what else to do, right?

Silly girl, how difficult can it be to stir up a mix myself?  In fact, I can remember visiting my great-grandmother's house and she did have a big jar of cocoa mix in her kitchen.  Standard breakfast for the little kids was cocoa and toast....  still a favorite of mine.

So, once again, I turned to the internet and started searching hot cocoa recipes... holy smokes, who knew there were so many variations.  First I had to work out the difference between hot cocoa and hot chocolate.  Yes, there is a difference and I'll save that for another post.  And then I had to find a simple, basic hot cocoa recipe. Finally, I found one and it became my standard:  3 c of instant, full cream powdered milk, 2 c of powdered sugar, 1 c of cocoa powder (not to be confused with cooca mix, cocoa powder is found in the baking aisle), and 2 tsp of corn starch ( thickens and makes the cocoa creamier).  Mix it all together.  Dump 1 scoop (from the aforementioned can of cocoa mix) into a mug.  Add water.  Stir.  Yum.

And then, the other day, some facebook friends were sharing their hot cocoa recipes, and one in particular caught my eye:  3 c of instant, full cream powdered milk, 1 c of powdered sugar, 1/2 c of cocoa powder and 3 tsp of corn starch.  hmmmm    Less sugar (yea!)  Less cocoa (not sure)  More corn starch (to make it thicker and creamier Yea!!)  Let's try it!

I mixed it up this morning and OH MY GOSH...  YUMMMMM    It was definitely thicker and richer.  The cocoa flavor came right through.  I top it off with about 1/4 cup of full cream milk to cool it down.

So now my recipe card is called Even Better Best Hot Cocoa Mix (batch)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

So Much Stuff

We live in a world of SO MUCH stuff. It's overwhelming just how much stuff there is in our world, at least in the US part of the world. Yesterday, I had a couple of hours to kill, and because my husband and I have decided we would prefer to furnish our home with antiques, I decided to take a walk through the local antiques mall. The antiques mall is in an old building downtown that used to be a JCPenney, so if you're familiar with the JCPenney stores of the 1970s and before, you'll know what I mean when I say it's big, really big, as in 3 floors of stalls of antiques. And the antiques range as far as they can from crochet-edged hankies to pyrex bowls to cast iron hand pumps to hoosier cupboards. Truly, if you're looking for a specific item, and you're willing to spend the time, you'll find it in this store. So much stuff.  Most of it just sits there, collecting dust. Like wall-hanging thread holder which I first spotted the first time I w
7 comments
Read more

I'm in the pillowcase business!

Part of being a stay at home mom and making sustainable living choices is keeping expenses down, but the other part is to increase the income, too.  And working from home allows me to develop multiple small income avenues rather than just going after the one big avenue of income. With that in mind, I've been brainstorming, trying to come up with a project for the cold winter months.  I've kicked around various crochet ideas, but was truly inspired when I came across the idea of making custom pillowcases. Here are some photos of the one I whipped up this morning specifically so I could take photos to promote this new business venture. Isn't that a lovely pillowcase?  I can't wait to share with you all the pillowcases I have planned! Come spring, I'll add chickens, well eggs, as another avenue.  And of course the garden will go in which will reduce our food spending in a big way. What small avenues of income are you working on?
6 comments
Read more

Homeschooling and Field Trips

After reading Homeschool Adventures: Learning through Field Trips by Melissa Calaap, I knew field trips were going to be a regular part of our homeschool journey. Hands-on learning, experiences, talking with people on site.. that is where deep learning happens. And honestly, field trips were the best days of my own public school experience. Hello Ft Wayne Children's Zoo, Amish Acres, and Cotton Bowl Parade. My local homeschool community regularly organized park days, the occasional trip to the museum, IMAX movie, and other one-off meet-ups, but there wasn't a regular set pattern of field trips on the caliber of what I was looking for. So I had a decision to make. Did I sit and wait for others to create the opportunities I was looking for or did I do it myself? Now, coming from the public school background I came from, my first inclination was to wait for others to come up with the idea and organize it. I mean that's how it worked at the schools, right? In fact, the school a
Post a Comment
Read more