Friday, March 4, 2011

Homemade Hot Chocolate Mix

During the long, grey, drizzly days of winter, one of the things my girls love is warming up with hot chocolate after school.  Some mothers make it from scratch with melted chocolate and milk mixed to sublime perfection over the stove.

I am not that mom.

I want to be able to put the kettle on, dump some powder into a cup, stir the boiling water in, and serve!

I've been buying this super sugary stuff for years.

Eek - do you see some of those ingredients?  All the things Dr. Oz would tsk. tsk.  (Side note, does anyone else find Dr. Oz as creepy as I do?  Or even worse, all the women that fawn all over him?)  Anyhoo, I don't need Dr. Oz to tell me that this is powdered stuff is the junk food of hot chocolate.  Sugar and Corn Syrup are 2 of the top 3 ingredients.  Cocoa doesn't even show up till fourth on the list.  It's even got hydrogenated soy bean oil.  (Hydrogenated oil = heart attack waiting to happen.)

Once this giant bin was empty, I decided to fill it with this homemade hot chocolate mix.  It is amazingly simple!

Mix:
2 Cups cocoa powder
3 Cups white sugar
12 cups powdered milk

This seemed pretty sweet to me, but I'm not gonna lie, my kids weren't too thrilled the first time they tried it, so I added  more sugar.  Over time I will gradually make it less sugary.

Soooo easy and much cheaper!  And no corn syrup or hydrogenated oil either.  Dr. Oz would be proud.   (He may even smile in his condescending, creepy manner.)

3 comments:

  1. Hi Lynn,
    What we do is not as convenient as a mix, but the kids like it more and more over time. Now they love it. I add one tsp cocoa and almost one Tbsp honey to 1.5 cups milk and cook till desired warmth. The kids don't like their hot chocolate hot!

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  2. Oooooo - honey in hot chocolate - sounds yum!

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  3. I do something similar to your recipe, but I use splenda.

    I also add mini mellows sometimes as a treat.

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