Hot chocolate made from Askinosie 70% chocolate

Made from real chocolate at home, Askinosie hot chocolate is a delight you can enjoy anytime.  It uses real chocolate disks mixed with milk to create the perfect hot chocolate.

By taking the chocolate disks and melting them before adding the hot milk slowly and carefully, you start by creating a paste of the chocolate before adding more hot milk to create the hot chocolate itself.

It is slightly complex to make as I found the melted chocolate had to be quite thoroughly mixed with a little hot milk at a time to prevent what I had the first time (some chocolate left in the bottom).

This hot chocolate is made from my favourite Arriba Nacional bean chocolate at the best 70% ratio for it,  The chocolate flavour is clear and vibrant in this hot chocolate though care should be taken to let it cool slightly while stirring so as to not scald yourself (speaks the voice of experience) to help the whole flavour of the chocolate through.

This make-at-home treat is perfection in a mug and few things you find on the high street can compare to it.  It means no matter how bad your day has been, you’ll always have a nice mug of real hot chocolate waiting for you.

In a small shot or diluted in a larger cup, this hot chocolate is perfect for almost any taste.

While the small hot chocolate shot is thick and custardy like the Apostrophe hot cocoa, the Carluccio’s hot chocolate comes across with a higher complexity of chocolate flavour but in a tiny shot it is also more expensive.

The milky version is the shot of custardy hot chocolate with milk expertly added to create a beautiful hot chocolate sure to appeal to anyone with a love of chocolate.

The dark chocolate of the custardy shot is lovely and silky smooth and there is just too little to enjoy in a small shot.  The chocolate is slightly earthy in flavour but it has not been overcompensated for through excessive sweetness – it simply stands alone for the drinker to enjoy.

With both options of a thick shot of hot chocolate or a milky more liquid version, Caruccio’s offers something for most hot chocolate lovers.

Apostrophe and the custardy hot chocolate

Thick like custard is the first thought you have when drinking an Apostrophe hot chocolate.  The second thought is along the lines of despair that the luscious warm chocolate custard will end when this cup finishes and why does it have to cool so quickly.

The lovely custardy goodness that is this hot chocolate is extremely luscious and lovely and something you want to experience again and again.  The chocolate itself is not impressive, lacking the depth of flavour an Askinosie hot chocolate or Paul A Young hot cocoa might have.  What it lacks in depth, it makes up for in sheer silky addictive goodness.

The hot chocolate is dispensed from an old fashioned tea urn into a cup.  When I asked for a small, I was given a disbelieving look – clearly they know this can be addictive.  The rich dark chocolate poured into the cup and lid on, the chocolate scent wafts to all around.  This is not necessarily the scent of high quality chocolate – more of a delicious chocolate made from powder.

The chocolate here is clearly not meant to impress, with the slightly powdery undertone of the cup I had.  The depth of flavour is lacking and therefore the taste somewhat flat.  But as high street hot chocolates go, if your penchant is for thick, custardy hot chocolate, this is absolutely the one for you!

Hot chocolate comes in all flavours it seems and made in a variety of ways and Paul A Young has some of the best around.

As you can see in the video, the hot chocolate is made fresh in the shop and there are a series of flavours that you can choose from to have added to your hot chocolate.  The hot chocolate is ladled from a large pot into a cup and the heat can be felt through the cup.  I think this should have warned me that something wasn’t quite right.

The first sip I took scalded me a bit so I had trouble tasting the chocolate.  I had to wait about 20minutes for the hot chocolate to cool to a more drinkable temperature and it was close to the end of the hot chocolate that the rich flavour of the chocolate came through.

You can taste the flavour of the chocolate with its slight earthiness which is sweetened just perfectly and balanced off against the milk it is mixed in with.  The hot chocolate is somewhere between Apostrophe and Carluccio’s and very nice.

To kick off my series of hot chocolate reviews, I thought I would post this video about the world’s largest mug of cocoa.

Hot chocolate varies in quality and quantity it seems from the various coffee shops.  From thick custard-like shots to powdery flavourless drinks, hot chocolate quality varies wildly from place to place.

The American Dairy Association created the world’s largest mug of hot chocolate in New York on New Years Day as a way of highlighting some of the important nutrients that are found in milk.  These nutrients are apparently important in these winter months but really we all know the best hot chocolate is made with read chocolate and milk.

Really, I think it’s just a rocking reason to share chocolate with the world!