Hot Cocoa

One of my all-time favorite drinks is hot chocolate.

Maybe it's just because I love chocolate in itself, but really, when it's cold outside, whats better than sitting down and enjoying a nice warm mug of cocoa?

The inspiration for this post came from some of the flavors of cocoa I enjoyed last week (gourmet cocoa and swiss mocha), and from the fact that winter is coming to an end. I mean, now is the best time to enjoy hot chocolate before the days turn too hot again, right?  Anyway, to encourage this, I'm going to include a couple of my home-made recipes for hot chocolate:

Mocha Cocoa:

Ingredients:

Cocoa mix

Milk

Hot water

Instant coffee crystals

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 Put the cocoa mix in the bottom of a mug and stir in just enough milk to make a muddy soup. Pour in the directed amount of water and mix it all together. Add coffee crystals to taste.

Minty Hot Chocolate:

Ingredients:

Cocoa mix + hot water

Mint extract

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Make the hot chocolate like normal, but add in a couple drops of the mint extract to taste.

 The Best Hot Cocoa : )   :

Ingredients:

Cocoa mix + hot water

Milk

Individual Dove chocolate pieces

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This one's basically made like the Mocha Cocoa, except instead of instant coffee crystals, use a knife to shave the dove chocolate into the cocoa at the end. I'm not sure why, but the melted chocolate makes it so much better!

And of course, marshmellows are optional :)  Enjoy!