"hot chocolate" news and stories

Xoco's churros are hard to get. Photo: ehfisher/flicker.

Would you wait three days for a "Top Chef" churro?

Rick Bayless, one of Chicago's top chefs and the winner of Bravo's "Top Chef Masters," is extending his gourmet Mexican empire to street food. Last week, he added XOCO (pronounced "Sho-Co") to his string of Windy City hot spots including Frontera Grill and Topolobampo. The latest aims to bring authentic Mexican tortas and caldos (sandwiches and soups) to the masses. How did it go over with the locals? The line snaked out the door.

When Slashfood swung by for after-dinner churros -- the delectable fried-dough treats sprinkled with sugar and spices -- it took three nights of trying to get in.

In her A Good Appetite column, New York Times food writer Melissa Clark describes her quest to create a perfect cup of Valentine's Day hot chocolate for her husband. The catch? Her husband can't eat cream, or milk, or soy milk, or rice milk or nut milk. So Clark turned to Maricel Presilla's "The New Taste of Chocolate: A Cultural and Natural History of Cacao With Recipes," for some pre-Columbian secrets to dairy-free hot chocolate, then, on the advice of a French chocolatier, tries a simple dark chocolate-and-water concoction. Finally, she combines the two concepts, mixing coconut milk with the pure dark chocolate, and comes up with a creamy, rich, deeply chocolatey yet lactose-free winner. She even figures out a merengue topping to mimic the fluffy goodness of whipped cream.

Check out this recent Slashfood post for eight more remarkable hot chocolate recipes.

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I grew up on Swiss Miss hot chocolate - cocoa powder and hot water, as simple as that. While living in Paris, I tried rich thick hot chocolates that made my Swiss Miss alternative seem overly watery and lacking in flavor and texture. So, when I returned to NY, I became intrigued by the many different ways to make this simple drink more exquisite. Mexican hot chocolate is probably my favorite.

If you're looking to spice up your hot chocolate, you don't necessarily have to add anything to the combination besides water, milk, and chocolate. Think about using different kinds of chocolates. For example, a Mexican hot chocolate is made from chocolate that has often been blended with sugar, vanilla and spices, like cinnamon. Taza Chocolate in Somerville, Massachusetts produces a particularly delicious Mexican chocolate that you can purchase online. It's amazing what cinnamon does for hot chocolate.

Of course, you can also create different hot chocolates by adding some rum and a variety of creams. Check out these 8 remarkable hot chocolate recipes below and let us know which ones are your favorite:

1. Mexican Hot Chocolate
2. Belgian Hot Chocolate
3. Hot Chocolate from The Barefoot Contessa
4. Hot Chocolate Agasajo-Style
5. Hot Chocolate with Rum
6. Superrich Hot Chocolate with Coconut Cream
7. Hot Chocolate Passion
8. Martha Stewart's White Hot Chocolate

At New York City's Roasting Plant Coffee Company (81 Orchard St. between Broome and Grand streets, and 75 Greenwich Ave. at Seventh Ave., 212-775-7755), they have to-die-for hot chocolate. The recipe is shockingly simple, and you can make it at home!

The secret? Gelato.

Go buy a pint of your favorite chocolate gelato (dark chocolate is recommeneded), put a scoop in a mug, and let it melt. Add steamed milk to taste. Top it with marshmallows or whipped cream and chocolate chips (right). Done! Classy, frothy hot chocolate with a divine, rich flavor.

If you want pre-melted gelato at your beck and call (pour steamed milk on frozen gelato and you get "lukewarm chocolate"), keep some in your fridge in a sealable tupperware container, and use it within two days.

[via Tasting Table]

The Fancy Food Show is starting to become a distant memory, as the demands of regular old work and life push their back into the forefront of my mind. However, there are a few products that continue to stick with me and continue to marvel me with their absolute deliciousness.

One such product is Cocio. It doesn't look like much, in fact it's nothing more than chocolate milk in a bottle. However, it is the best chocolate milk I've ever tasted. It is sweet, but not cloying, thick without being sludgy and every so chocolate-y. It is a Danish product that has been around since 1951 and in that country, is often consumed as street food, in conjunction with sausages (at least according to Wikipedia). It is also all natural, made of nothing more than chocolate, sugar (no high fructose corn syrup here) and milk. If you think of yourself as a chocolate milk connoisseur, this is a product to seek out.

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