What could be better than returning from a winter stroll to a steaming mug of hot chocolate?  Winter brings short days, long months and plummeting temperatures, but a great excuse to indulge in decadent hot chocolate. Follow  the step by step recipe on how to make hot chocolate from scratch, so reach for a pan and and let’s make a hug in a mug.

Follow our recipe and with just a handful of simple ingredients you will be able wow your friends and family with your new found talent on how to make amazing hot chocolate from scratch. It may sound daunting, but our fail safe recipe takes just 15 minutes to prepare with little effort. We realise that it is a little longer than pouring boiling water over sugary cocoa powder. But believe me it’s definitely worth the extra couple of minutes.

The focus on any good recipe is always the quality of the ingredients. In the BF kitchen we always get excited when our suppliers turn up with amazing ingredients. It’s really important to us to use the best quality ingredients for our products and our ethos is pretty simple: to make our signature chocolate bonbons, bars and caramels we need to start with amazing ingredients!

Choosing The Ingredients

Our hot chocolate recipe made from scratch uses dark chocolate rather than the conventional cocoa powder. Of course it is entirely up to you which you prefer. But being the main ingredient and the star of the show we would recommend a high percentage dark chocolate.  The percentage displayed on chocolate packaging lets us know the content of cacoa in the product. Dark chocolate tends to have 60-100% cacoa giving an intense flavour great for hot chocolate. In the how to make hot chocolate from scratch recipe we use a 72% dark chocolate from Venezeula (which is also one our signature 12 bonbons) the dark chocolate has a perfect balance of powerful cacoa and intense woody notes, perfect for hot chocolate.

How To Make Hot Chocolate From Scratch Recipe

Ingredients

72% Dark chocolate                      100g

Whole milk                                      400ml

Caster sugar                                    3 teaspoons

Butter                                               10g

A small pinch of salt

Method

Combine all the ingredients in a saucepan and boil, simmer on a low heat for 5 minutes. Mix and serve piping hot.

Serving Suggestions

Some might argue that hot chocolate is perfect as it is, and others like to put their own twist on the ultimate comfort drink. Here are some of our favourite additions that never fail to raise a smile. The adult version by adding your favourite tipple, such as Grand Marnier, Amaretto, Baileys and Frangelico. Or for texture you can add marshmallows, sprinkle with praline or crushed Biscoff. Another popular addition is extra warmth by adding exotic spices such as cinnamon, cardamon, star anise or ground ginger. Alternatively turn to your kitchen cupboards for inspiration there maybe something you have been looking to use up for sometime.

We hope we have inspired you for your next creation and don’t forget chocolate is always a good answer!