Over the last couple of months, I’ve been polishing my skills at ghosting – the victim in question being this old blog of mine. It turns out to be one of my talents, although not one I’m particularly proud of. I didn’t expect my day job, editing, and my new part-time job as a culinary tour guide to eat up my time and energy so completely, and so I want to make amends by offering you all the perfect French hot chocolate as a thank you for bearing with me!
There’s an old expression that writers have very clean kitchens. While I cannot speak for my own kitchen (where there is a teetering pile of washing up with my name on it), I can say that procrastination is my middle name. Yesterday, on my first afternoon off in days, instead of sitting down to finally write about this French hot chocolate, I managed to instead bake cookies and a chicken pie, pastry and all. The blank page can be a very intimidating place, so over the last few weeks, I’ve been a coward and hidden from it.
Writing is just like riding a bike – it requires a few wobbly false starts before you can take off again. And that has been me today, drifting hither and thither as I attempt to put words on a page. My instinct right now is to run away and possibly straighten my hair, but no, this French hot chocolate is too delicious to ignore and I must share it with you now, otherwise it’ll soon be spring and you’ll no longer want it!
Winter warmer: Perfect French hot chocolate
November has been a blur – it’s that intermediary month between Halloween and Christmas and the treadmill is clattering away beneath your feet, and suddenly it’s the end of the month – in fact, I write this on Thanksgiving. How do Americans cope with an extra holiday in between?! As a child, I never understood why adults got so tired and stressed by the holidays. Now, I just want to laugh at child-me. Stay innocent, kid.
I say all that, and yet, I really do love this time of year. It’s suddenly chilly so I get to wear a coat (and it’s a nice coat too!) and boots (these ones are knee-high boots! Tres sexy) and I suddenly feel important, my coat swishing, my heels clicking as I pound the streets of Toulouse. On the other hand, I sit here right now wrapped in both a blanket and a Pikachu dressing gown (the hood is Pikachu’s face… it even has ears), so there are ups and downs to the season.
But, the best part is that I can drink hot chocolate. Hot chocolate cravings in summer are practically alien, so now that it’s officially November and I’m cold, I can whip up a mug of hot chocolate without any excuses. I did just that the other day – I had an imminent deadline and my hand was freezing to the computer mouse, so I deserved a treat. We had milk, we had chocolate. French hot chocolate was on the menu.
How to make French hot chocolate
Hot chocolate for me as a child involved Cadbury’s hot chocolate powder. The drink itself may have required only two ingredients but my mum made it to perfection, and nothing could beat that topping of creamy chocolatey foam that bubbled up when she poured in the hot milk.
French hot chocolate on the other hand is an entirely different beast. If you appreciate the essence of French food – fat – then you can imagine where this is going. On the Taste of Toulouse tours, I repeat “it’s cooked in its own fat” at least three times for various French dishes. So, you have been warned.
Naturally, French hot chocolate needs milk. The recipe I was given by my local chocolate shop here in Toulouse requires cream but even Gaylord, a self-assured Frenchman who regularly says “fat is life” with a straight face, thought that was excessive. It also wants bars of chocolate, not chocolate powder. Oh and sugar.
Last winter, I took it upon myself to sample as many hot chocolates around the city as I could, to compile them into a ‘best hot chocolate in Toulouse’ round-up. This never came to being because I started that fateful anti-inflammatory diet which I’ve since given up because I want to live a happy life, but it did mean I had fun for a few weeks sipping away at mugs of frothy silky hot chocolate. And the best of course was the richest and thickest of the bunch. This café (which has now sadly closed) served up a tankard of what appeared to be melted chocolate. So I vowed to make my own.
French hot chocolate is a bit more time-consuming than the hot chocolate of my youth, but that was warm milk plus chocolate powder, so really any recipe in world is more complicated than that. This hot chocolate needs a saucepan and a quick caramel made from melted sugar – yes, that sounds unnecessarily faffy, but it lends the finished drink deep rich caramel notes, plus no gritty sugar at the bottom of your mug.
Into that caramel you pour your milk which you bring to a simmer. Then add that chopped chocolate – and yes, there is a lot of it, this drink is French after all. They love chocolate here – fun fact: France produces 700,000 tonnes of it every year. Whisk to melt it all into the hot milk, then gently stir over medium heat as the chocolate simmers away. It will slowly thicken, turning from chocolate milk to ganache. This is hot chocolate for grown ups. We may have more stressful holidays but at least we can appreciate real French hot chocolate.
Pour the finished hot chocolate into your cups and serve with a spoon on the side because this is practically chocolate pudding in a mug.
And with that, I am now swearing to myself that procrastination is allowed only if it involves making hot chocolate.
French hot chocolate
Naturally only the best chocolate is recommended for homemade hot chocolate – I've tried endless varieties (milk chocolate, 60% dark, 70% dark) and all are delicious, just adjust the amount of sugar accordingly. This recipe is for dark (70%) hot chocolate.
Feel free to serve with some whipped cream on top if this isn't enough indulgence for you.
Cook Time: 10 minutes
Course: Drinks
Cuisine: French, Winter
Keyword: hot chocolate, milk
Servings: 1
Ingredients
15 g sugar
300 ml milk
80 g dark chocolate broken into squares
Instructions
Place the sugar in a saucepan and set over medium-high heat. Allow the sugar to melt and darken – this should take around 3 minutes. Once you have an amber caramel, pour in the milk. It will spit as the cold milk reacts to the hot caramel so stay back! Lower the heat to medium-low.
Stir the mixture gently to loosen the hardened caramel into the liquid. Add the chocolate and, using a whisk, stir it altogether to melt.
Bring the hot chocolate to a simmer. Stir with a spatula as it gently bubbles for 5 minutes. It will thicken and darken. Pour the hot chocolate into a big mug and serve with a spoon the side. Maybe serve with some cream on top!