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.
After the Spanish arrived, chocolate in Mexico gained sugar and cinnamon, and it is still sold in rough tablets that already contain them. Wikipedia's hot chocolate article says Mexican hot chocolate often includes semisweet chocolate, cinnamon, sugar and vanilla, sold in tablets and whisked into milk, water or cream. The tool that whisks it is the molinillo, a turned wooden whisk rolled between the palms to raise a froth; Wikipedia says molinillos are still made on lathes by artisans in Guerrero and Oaxaca, and the same tool is called a batirol or batidor in the Philippines). Rick Bayless, the Chicago chef and cookbook author known for Mexican cooking, makes it in a Mexican chocolate pot (olla para chocolate) and says milk or water both work.
🇲🇽 The original
Mexican tablet chocolate, already sweetened and spiced with cinnamon, melted into hot milk and beaten with a wooden molinillo until it foams.
🇺🇸 The American version
America made it hot cocoa: unsweetened cocoa powder, sugar and milk, smooth and light, usually with marshmallows on top, and later a just-add-water packet. See the Classic American Hot Cocoa (the Recipe on the Can) recipe.
🗳️ Mexican hot chocolate or American hot cocoa? Vote: Mexican hot chocolate vs American hot cocoa →
📖 Where is it from?: Why Do Colombians Put Cheese in Hot Chocolate? →
Why it works the kitchen science
The chocolate is already a recipe
Mexican tablets contain sugar and cinnamon (and sometimes other spices), so you only add liquid.
Beating, not stirring
Rolling the molinillo whips air into the hot milk and breaks up the grainy tablet chocolate at the same time.
Step by step
- Step 1
Chop the chocolate tablets into rough 1/2-inch pieces with a heavy knife.
- Step 2
Put the milk, chocolate and the cinnamon stick, if using, in a 2-quart saucepan over medium heat.
- Step 3
Stir often for 6 to 8 minutes, until the milk is steaming (about 170°F) and most of the chocolate has dissolved. Small grainy bits will remain; that is normal. Do not let it boil.
- Step 4
Pour into a Mexican chocolate pot or a tall pitcher and remove the cinnamon stick. Stand a wooden molinillo in it and roll the handle back and forth quickly between your palms for about 2 minutes, until the chocolate is dissolved and foamy.
- Step 5
No molinillo? Pour it into a blender no more than half full, take out the center of the lid and cover the hole with a folded towel, and blend about 30 seconds, until smooth and foamy. An immersion blender in a tall pitcher also works.
- Step 6
Pour into cups right away, dividing the foam evenly. The foam fades if it sits.
Mexican Hot Chocolate (Chocolate Mexicano)
Serves 4 (3/4 cup each) · about 3 cups · 15 min total
- 2 1/2 cups whole milk (or water)
- 1 cup (about 5 oz) chopped Mexican tablet chocolate (it does not need to be chopped fine)
- Optional: 1 cinnamon stick
Method
- Chop the chocolate tablets into rough 1/2-inch pieces with a heavy knife.
- Put the milk, chocolate and the cinnamon stick, if using, in a 2-quart saucepan over medium heat.
- Stir often for 6 to 8 minutes, until the milk is steaming (about 170°F) and most of the chocolate has dissolved. Small grainy bits will remain; that is normal. Do not let it boil.
- Pour into a Mexican chocolate pot or a tall pitcher and remove the cinnamon stick. Stand a wooden molinillo in it and roll the handle back and forth quickly between your palms for about 2 minutes, until the chocolate is dissolved and foamy.
- No molinillo? Pour it into a blender no more than half full, take out the center of the lid and cover the hole with a folded towel, and blend about 30 seconds, until smooth and foamy. An immersion blender in a tall pitcher also works.
- Pour into cups right away, dividing the foam evenly. The foam fades if it sits.
Adapted from Rick Bayless, "Mexican Hot Chocolate" (yield 3 cups, enough for 4). Bayless gives "medium heat" and "steaming hot"; the 170°F target and the stovetop timing are ours. He allows milk or water; we use whole milk and give water as a tip. rickbayless.com. Ingredient list follows the source; the method is in our own words.
All sources (3)
Tips
- Water version: Bayless allows water in place of milk. It tastes lighter and more chocolate-forward, and it is closer to older Mexican habits.
- Tablets differ: some dissolve in a few minutes, some take longer. Keep stirring until only small grains are left.
- Sweeter or spicier tablets vary by brand; taste before adding anything.
The rules people argue about
What the sources agree on, what they don't, and what is just a good story.
- Mexican hot chocolate must be made with water. Folklore: Bayless gives milk or water as equal choices.
- The molinillo is pre-Hispanic. Disputed in popular telling: the Maya and Aztecs raised foam by pouring from a height (Wikipedia, Cornell); we found no reputable date for when the molinillo appeared.
- Mexican chocolate always has cinnamon. Documented as typical (Wikipedia), but recipes vary by maker.
Every other hot chocolate
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.
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.
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