Hot Chocolate of the World
Chocolate was a drink for thousands of years before anyone made a bar of it: frothed, spiced and drunk in Mesoamerica, then sweetened in Spain and thickened in Italy and Paris. America made it cocoa from a can and then a packet. Here is every style, step by step.
Mesoamerican-Style Cacao Drink with Chile and Annatto
Unsweetened chocolate melted into hot water with red annatto, ground chile, vanilla and a little honey, then poured from cup to cup until it wears a tall head of foam. A modern home version of the drink the Maya and Aztecs prized, not a reconstruction.
Mexican Hot Chocolate (Chocolate Mexicano)
Mexican tablet chocolate, already sweetened and spiced with cinnamon, melted into hot milk and beaten with a wooden molinillo until it foams.
Spanish Chocolate a la Taza (for Churros)
Dark chocolate melted into nearly boiling milk with a little cocoa, sugar and cornstarch, then stirred over low heat until it is thick enough to coat a churro. The Madrid way to start the day or end the night.
Italian Cioccolata Calda Densa
Milk whisked with cocoa and plenty of cornstarch, brought just to a simmer, then finished with melted dark chocolate until it is as thick as a loose pudding. You eat the last of it with a spoon.
Parisian Chocolat Chaud
Whole milk and very good bittersweet chocolate, nothing else but an optional spoon of brown sugar, simmered until thick and served in tiny cups the Paris café way. Inspired by the famous thick chocolate at Angelina; not Angelina's recipe.
Viennese-Style Hot Chocolate with Whipped Cream (Heiße Schokolade Wiener Art)
Dark chocolate melted into hot milk with a little honey and cinnamon, poured into cups and capped with a big spoon of stiffly whipped cream, the way Austrian and German cafés serve it.
Colombian Chocolate Santafereño (Hot Chocolate with Cheese)
Cinnamon-scented hot chocolate frothed with a molinillo and poured over cubes of soft fresh cheese, which melt in the cup and are fished out with a spoon. Bogotá's breakfast and afternoon "onces".
Filipino Tsokolate (Tablea Hot Chocolate)
Pure roasted cacao tablets (tablea) dissolved in boiling water, simmered slowly with milk, sweetened with muscovado sugar and frothed with a wooden batirol. Thick, grainy and deeply chocolatey.
Classic American Hot Cocoa (the Recipe on the Can)
Cocoa powder, sugar and a pinch of salt boiled into a quick syrup, then stretched with a quart of hot milk and a little vanilla and whisked until foamy. Hershey's classic, made for six mugs and a bag of marshmallows.
Homemade Hot Cocoa Mix
Nonfat dry milk, powdered sugar, Dutch-process cocoa and ground white chocolate, blitzed into a mix that keeps for months. One scoop in a mug of hot milk tastes like the packet you grew up with, only better.
5-Minute Stovetop Cocoa for Two
Dutch-process cocoa and sugar whisked into a little water for one minute, then whole milk heated through on medium-high until steaming. Two real mugs of cocoa in the time it takes to find the packet.
Frozen Hot Chocolate, Inspired by Serendipity 3
Melted chocolate stirred with hot cocoa mix, sugar and milk, cooled, then blended with ice until it is thick like a frozen daiquiri and piled into a goblet under whipped cream and chocolate shavings. Inspired by, not official.