Belgian Hot Chocolate

If you’re a hot chocolate fan, you’ll fall in love with this rich, decadent drink of melted chocolate and creamy milk.

Servings

6

Prep time:

10 minutes

Total Time:

15 minutes

Good For:

Beverage

Inroduction

About this Recipe

No powdered mix here! This rich, decadent hot chocolate is literally made from melting chocolate into milk. It’s rich, thick, and you only need a little to feel like royalty.

I based my recipe mostly on one from chocolatier David Lebovitz, though as always, I made a few tweaks. His original recipe calls for half-and-half or whole milk, neither of which I had on hand…but I had 1% and heavy cream, so I did a combination of those, and it worked great.

Looking for a sugar-free recipe? Just use sugar-free chocolate! I used both milk and dark varieties from ChocZero in mine, and it was absolutely fabulous. And if you’re short on time and don’t feel like chopping up a chocolate bar, you can use chocolate chips in a pinch. (Don’t tell the chocolatier I said so…no idea if that’s “allowed” by strict Belgian standards, but it worked fine for me!)

Ingredients

Instructions

  • 4 cups whole milk, half and half, or combination of ¼ cup cream and 3 ¾ cups lower-fat milk
  • 8 oz (230 g) semi-sweet chocolate, chopped
  • 4 oz (115 g) milk chocolate, chopped
  • pinch of salt
  • ½ teaspoon cinnamon
  1. Chop your chocolate.
    .
  2. Combine chocolate with 2 cups of the milk in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Whisk until the chocolate melts.
    .
  3. Add the rest of the milk, the salt, and the cinnamon. Whisk until smooth. If you have trouble getting it smooth, use a hand blender or milk frother.
    .
  4. Enjoy! What you don’t drink now, save for later—it’ll thicken up and get even richer (which is saying something) as it sits. Reheat gently over the stove or for very short intervals in the microwave.

From the Books

Hot chocolate of this variety has been mentioned in several of my novels, like A Heart’s Revolution, but the Belgian recipe in particular is a nod to siblings Margot and Lukas De Wilde, who hail from Belgium and star in A Song Unheard (Lukas’s story) and The Number of Love (Margot’s story).

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