Hot chocolate weather has arrived! Hurray!….mostly…with six hot chocolate lovers still at home that can be one expensive love affair. I tried many, many recipes and was never quite satisfied with the results. The flavor was not the big problem - the skim that would form on the top as the chocolate cooled THAT was the problem. Not just a problem but a BIG problem. Nothing turns kids off homemade like seeing ”scum” floating on top of their drink.

Flavor is a factor too. After trying many different recipes with many different costs we have a winner. The following is very very basic – too good to be true basic.

Basic Hot Chocolate Mix

2 -3 cups of powdered milk

1/4 cup of cocoa powder (baking NOT instant)

1+ cups of sugar

That’s it. 

Two or Three batches takes less than 10 minutes to make, store and clean up. Make as many batches as needed, store in an empty container – we use an old hot chocolate container for the kids to use and store the extra in a large empty hot chocolate container. Keep a tablespoon inside the container for measuring, about 1 1/2 – 2 tablespoons depending on preference and cup size. The goal is to not have powdered residue left on the bottom of the cup. Residue = wasted mix. The measuring spoon helps. 

The secret ingredient - mixing. This is the absolute secret to an excellent homemade hot chocolate mix. The sugar must be mixed to the consistency of powdered sugar. There are several ways to accomplish this important task.

If you are fortunate enough to be given an ancient vitamix that a bargain hunting father has given you then the task is easy. We are so blessed. Dad found a vintage 70s model at a yardsale for $3 and after using it a few times to can tomatoes with Sister C (sorry sis) he gave it to me. It works wonderfully though the vitamix company probably had higher aspirations for their product.

Next best or perhaps just as good – a good blend in the blender. It would be a good idea to mix the ingredients in a bowl first then process in the blender is two or three batches. Cookbooks commonly suggest blending sugar into powdered sugar in the blender so adding powdered milk should not be a problem.

Third use a food processor. Before the vitamix I used my food processor but did not know how long to mix. Sometimes we would have chocolate that had no skim but not consistently. Now that I know to blend until the sugar is as fine as possible. Remember sugar to powdered sugar.

Lastly – my friend sifts hers three times using a hand sifter. Sifting helps with the scum effect but not much. If we had to go back to hand powdered tools I would use powdered sugar, mix in a large bowl and then sift three times. In this instance the sifting is to make the milk powder finer and to throughly mix the ingredients.

If you are flush with cash or have a full pantry this recipe can be jazzed up. Here are a few ideas:

Many recipes call for powdered coffee creamer. This is something we rarely have any more. One reason is the cost but the main reason is our trying to avoid soy products due to their adverse effect on Little Missey’s thyroid medicine.  Rarely does not mean never so in the back reaches of the cupboard I had a nearly empty container of French vanilla powdered creamer that needed to be used before it finished the process of petrification. After chiseling some loose I added about a teaspoon to my cup. Very, very good. The container is now empty. I didn’t share.

Miss Maggie at her old “Hillbilly Housewife” site (now sold & not quite as good) suggests adding cheap pudding mix before blending for added richness. I don’t really notice a difference.

Today I had a light bulb moment. The kids have been on a peppermint tea binge and had made their morning cups. While supervising my brain began whirling….hot tea is made with hot water….hot peppermint tea is hot water with mint flavor….what if hot chocolate were added….and the result is….

!!!WONDERFUL!!!

Hot mint chocolate cocoa…mmmmm….

For the frugal minded – used mint tea bags work great. (We are using Celestial Seasonings peppermint.)

During Sister C’s visit (after Aunt Rose’s funeral) she asked if making our own was really saving us money. That’s a hard question to answer. Right now we are using boxes of powdered milk that were purchased over a year ago & stored in the deep freeze. The boxes are the large size and were purchased for approximately $7.00. The baking chocolate was also purchased in the past for .89. Based on these purchase prices – yes we are saving money.

Will making our own be as frugal in the future? The answer is not so straight forward. The basic ingredients have jumped in price – the price of powdered milk has increased so much that it is very hard to find the large boxes. The few times that I have seen the large size the price was about $18.00 (not at the cheapest store in town and not recently). Baking chocolate has doubled in price. I would have to find a large canister of hot chocolate mix (not easily found) and crunch the numbers. Dollarwise I just don’t know.

Ingredient wise – what price is too much knowing the hot chocolate has only four ingredients: milk powder, cocoa, sugar and water (well water: no fluoride or chlorine)

Lastly – we drink a lot of hot chocolate. I don’t mind this because if it weren’t hot chocolate it would be plain milk. (yes it should be more water & less milk but it isn’t) If we were to replace the powdered milk with liquid milk in a gallon container – that would be a whole different set of numbers for my poor brain to crunch.

Then there is the question of using milk powder from storage to make hot chocolate instead of keeping it for future use. I could call it rotation but the replacement cost being more than double means in a truly frugal world the kids would be drinking water and the milk powder would still be stored in the freezer.

Sooner or Later I’ll get it all sorted out, until then there’s a cup of mint chocolate cocoa calling my name…