Snow finally hit Delaware and the temperatures are starting to descend into a frigid range. Everyone needs a way to get warm.
Thankfully there's a holiday on Wednesday to help – National Hot Cocoa Day!
Sure this might be Big Hot Cocoa trying to influence your hot beverage purchases, but it's still hot cocoa so let's grab our mugs.
What's the difference between hot cocoa and hot chocolate?
According to Michigan State University Extension, both are made from the cacao tree, but they are different. Hot cocoa is made from cocoa powder, whole milk and sugar. Hot chocolate, in its purest form is chocolate bars melted in cream.
However, most people use the terms hot cocoa and hot chocolate interchangeably. Either way, you're getting a heartwarming beverage.
Homemade hot chocolate recipe
You start by adding three parts milk to one part heavy cream into a saucepan over medium heat. Three cups of milk will make about four or so servings of hot chocolate.
Next,, add two ounces of chopped chocolate and a little over a teaspoon of cocoa powder per cup of milk. Next comes sugar. You can use any type of sugar you like, adding about 2.5 teaspoons per cup of milk.
To finish it off add a hint of vanilla extract and a pinch of salt. Mix until everything is melted together.
Now you can serve the hot cocoa with whatever toppings you like, whipped cream marshmallows or even shaved chocolate.
A brief history of hot chocolate
The delicious treat traces its history back thousands of years to the Aztec and Mayan cultures in South and Central America. The drink was made by grinding up cocoa seeds. Since it predated sugar coming to the region it was a more bitter drink. Europeans brought cocoa beans and chocolate back with them after coming to the Americas, and it was in Spain where the drink began to resemble the treat you're used to more closely.
The drink was around long before chocolate bars were invented in the middle of the 1800s.
Where are hot cocoa deals?
Starbucks is also offering a free short hot chocolate with the purchase of a handcrafted drink every Saturday and Sunday in December.
The handcrafted drink must be grande or larger, and brewed coffee, tea and ready-to-drink beverages are excluded. The deal is valid at participating U.S. stores.
Embedded content: https://www.instagram.com/p/C0mRVbttiM8/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
Joe Difazio and Bailey Schulz contributed to this story.
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