At the gates of the end of the year, today we bring you a perfect recipe for these dates; and is that hot chocolate is one of the most typical drinks of Christmas. In many homes it is a tradition to start the year with a good hot chocolate, accompanied with churros, which if they are homemade, much better. And so that this year you triumph with your guests and family, we bring you a very original recipe: homemade hot chocolate spiced with ginger, perfect for Christmas.
Making homemade chocolate is very simple. It is also much healthier than if we buy instant chocolate, which in its great majority, the percentage of sugar exceeds the percentage of cocoa.
On the other hand, we avoid all the other artificial ingredients such as preservatives, colorants… not at all healthy for our health. And since we are going to give ourselves a sweet treat during the holidays, it is better that it is of quality and with an unequaled flavor.
Hot Chocolate with Gingerbread Recipe, Christmas Special
To make this homemade hot chocolate we only need milk, chocolate (in bar or cocoa powder) and sugar. Although the latter is optional. All the other ingredients are to give it a special touch.
Regarding the chocolate, if we opt for cocoa powder, we will try to avoid those that indicate “special for hot chocolate”, because as we mentioned, they have a very high percentage of sugar.
If we choose a chocolate bar, it should ideally be 70% cocoa or higher. Since then we will melt it with milk; and, in addition we can add sugar, so it will not be bitter at all.
Although it is a matter of taste, and you can choose the chocolate you prefer, if you opt for chocolate with more milk, reduce or eliminate the sugar to prevent it from being too sweet. And if you opt for a more original hot chocolate, later we will see all the options we have to spice our hot chocolate.
But first, let’s take a look at this recipe for spiced hot chocolate with ginger, a perfect drink for Christmas.
Hot chocolate Ginger
Ingredients
- 400 g Dark chocolate (tablet) (or 250 g Cocoa Powder)
- 1 l Milk (whole milk is better)
- 1 pinch Salt
- 2-4 Tbsp Brown Sugar
- Vanilla Extract
- 1 and 1/2 Tsp Ground Ginger
- Crushed Pepper (a pinch)
- 1 and 1/2 Tsp Cinnamon Powder
For garnish
- Whipped Cream
- Cinnamon Powder
Instructions
- Start by heating the milk in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the sugar and start mixing well until the sugar melts.
- Add also the vanilla extract and the spices. Mix well.
- When the milk is hot, add the chopped chocolate, a pinch of salt and mix well. Keep over medium heat while stirring until the chocolate is completely melted. Until it starts to boil.
- Once it boils, remove the saucepan from the heat and wait until it stops bubbling. If it is to our taste, remove and serve in cups. Now we have ready a delicious homemade hot chocolate.
To decorate our hot chocolate
- Serve in cups and top each one with a little whipped cream and cinnamon powder.
Notes
As you can see, making good homemade chocolate is very simple. It will be much better than the one we can buy instant or canned, besides being much healthier.
Accompany your hot chocolate spiced with ginger with some homemade churros, very easy to make. What’s more, the combination is spectacular. Can you think of a better mix?
What to spice hot chocolate with
Although we can make great chocolate with three simple ingredients, we can also give it a spectacular touch in an easy way.
For example, one of the basic ingredients to enhance the flavor of chocolate, and which we also use in other baking recipes, such as cakes, is salt. Salt enhances the flavor of chocolate, so adding a small pinch to our hot chocolate will considerably improve our drink. But be careful not to overdo it because, if it tastes salty, we would spoil the recipe.
Pepper has the same effect, it enhances the flavor of the chocolate and gives it a delicious touch.
Other more classic options for flavoring chocolate are vanilla and cinnamon. We can use both in stick, or use cinnamon powder or vanilla extract. Other spices that we can also use to spice our chocolate is cardamom. In order not to find the whole balls and to give more flavor, we will add it ground.
And finally, a very good option to flavor our chocolate is with a little bit of liqueur. We can use the one we like the most (as long as it goes well with the milk). For example, we can use fruit liqueurs, coffee or caramel liqueurs, or even sweet wines.
But rum or whiskey, for example, are not left behind; they will also look great with our chocolate.
Would you like to try this hot chocolate spiced with ginger this Christmas? As simple as it is to prepare, it is a perfect option for New Year’s breakfast. If you liked it, remember to leave us your comments, we love to read them! You can also follow us on social networks to keep up to date with all our publications. You will find us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
