Liquid Chocolate

Once upon a time, when I was on a couple's only ski trip in Canada*, Starbucks wowed me with something so incredibly delightful that I pined for it weeks after my return to the states.

It seemed that they were "testing" this product in limited markets and, try as I might, I could never find a Starbucks in Dallas that carried this wonderful concoction.

I only ever had about two ounces of "Drinking Chocolate", but I was completely, irrevocably hooked. Like a junkie, I was**.

I never really thought much about that experience after my Dallas search came up empty and I never saw liquid chocolate on a drink menu again. Then my days were too filled with diapers and whining and too-short naps to waste my time searching for a recipe to try.

Then today came. With snow and freezing conditions and sugar-allergic kids asking for hot chocolate.

I pined for the days when I could reheat chocolate milk or chocolate soy milk or a package of the stuff off the shelf. With almost as many grams of sugar as a Coke, I just couldn't bring myself to endure the experience that would follow one smallish cup of any of the above.

So I got on the Internet and discovered a recipe that I think is ALMOST, not quite, but pretty close to as yummy-tasting as that liquid cup of mellow cacao beans I was blessed to experience in Whistler***.

This isn't your cloyingly-sweet, make-your-teeth-need-a-good-brushing kind of hot chocolate. This is more like a 60% bittersweet experience with a creamy, liquid base. If you don't like dark chocolate, skip this one.

I present a modified recipe for "The Best No Sugar Hot Chocolate Ever"****.

2 cups coconut milk (in the refrigerated section)
2 T cocoa powder (I used Hershey's regular)
2 T agave nectar (low glycemic-index sugar substitute from the agave plant--yes, the one that also cranks out tequila. Undalay, undalay, ARRIBA!!!)
1 dash cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla

Mix all over low heat, stirring with a whisk to incorporate the cocoa; stir until no lumps exist.

Enjoy! And stay off those roads until sanity has returned.

Or, at least the sand trucks have made it to your section of the woods.


*SIGH. Those were the days.....

**Yoda. Love you, how I thee.

***Finally looked up the recipe for the original drinking chocolate. Now I know where some of the dimples on my butt originated. Ain't no amount of skiing that could get rid of that much sugary, high-fat dairy, goodness.

****The recipe I found on Cooks.com was titled closely to this. I had to tweak it to get rid of the Splenda and the milk.