Hot Chocolate for snobs

 In the interest of pandering to my prodigious affinity for Wishful Thinking, I made hot chocolate. Don't misunderstand. It's not cold today. Relatively speaking, it's cool. Ish. Cooler than it was in July. Practically long sleeve weather time. So I decided to indulge in an alternative-to-coffee beverage. It is more complicated than it sounds.

I'm not one for the pre-packaged hot chocolate mixes. I find them too sweet and some are even plastic tasting. I'd read a bit about cocoa nibs and was intrigued. They are being touted as an alternative to the caffeine heavy coffee and I'm thinking "what's wrong with caffeine?" but an alternative hot beverage is fine. Variety is good!  So not long ago we were at Your Dekalb Famer's Market (also known as My Happy Place) and they had tubs of cocoa nibs. Also this Costa Rican sugar that is minimally processed and has a delicious almost-molasses-but-sweeter flavor. I bought them because of course.

So, because reading instructions is for sissies, I dove right in to figure this stuff out. I ground up the nibs and mixed them with coffee for a brew. No chocolate flavor. How disappointing. The second time I used only nibs and brewed them (after a grind) in the coffee maker. Bleh. So weak and bland. Surely all those foody types touting this stuff don't mean this bland sad liquid. I gave in to common sense and read the methodology. Oh! French press not coffee maker! Roast the nibs first! Steep for much longer than you'd think! 

I roasted the nibs about 10 minutes at 350F (preheated) and caused the house to smell like the richest brownies ever conceived. Then ground those nibs, a bit more than would be used if they were coffee beans, and dumped them in the French press. 1/4 cup of nibs to 1-1/2 cups of boiling water and 10 minutes of steeping later, a decently chocolate hot drink happened but I still wasn't quite satisfied. Definitely better but not *quite* there.

Second time around, same amount of nibs, ground a little bit finer, same amount of boiling water. This time I added a tiny pinch of kosher salt and about 1/2 teaspoon of the fancy-pants Costa Rican sugar. 10 minutes steeping, and after pouring into the cup, about a tablespoon of heavy cream. THERE we are! It is a hot chocolate without being super sweet or overly creamy. Chocolately, comforty sit-on-the-couch-under-a-blankety beverage that I can't really trust anyone else to get right. Sort of like the chicken soup I want when I'm sick. There is a chewy sediment in the bottom of the cup that tastes like a deep dark chocolate almost baking chocolate but not as bitter thanks to the sugar. 

I suppose if I felt SUPER fancy I made homemade marshmallows to go on top, but I'm recovering from hand/wrist surgery and still kind of unmotivated to do things like that. Maybe by Christmas. As it is, whipped cream and a shaving of dark Ghirardelli would be fancy and good enough.