Warm up to January with a cup of cocoa the Century Farmhouse way!

When our girls were small, we'd make a big pitcher of homemade, cook-it-on-the-stovetop cocoa that we'd use for chilly morning breakfasts and end of day warm-ups from October to April. There is nothing quite like the comfort of warm cocoa, don't you agree? I'd mix cocoa powder and sugar and a dash of cinnamon with water to make a thick syrup, and add creamy milk to the pot, then pour it in the cocoa pitcher so we could help ourselves to a lovely chocolate drink easily warmed in the microwave later. 

The girls are quite grown up now and a full pitcher of cocoa can sometimes languish in the fridge if we don't make it a point to have a cup every day or so. So I created a recipe for a cocoa mix that is not as sweet as commercial mixes, but dissolves as easily as they do in your cup of hot milk. The trick is to use superfine baker's sugar (or caster sugar if you're in Europe), and use a bit less sugar in proportion to the cocoa powder you add to the mix. I also like to use a high quality cocoa powder, but in truth, nearly any cocoa powder will work as long as it is unsweetened when you buy it. You can enhance the flavor of the cocoa by treating the mix as you would a flavored sugar, so why not add a bit of vanilla bean and/or a dried anise star to the cocoa jar?  Mmmmm. You can also make store-bought marshmallows into a fancy treat: just slice off the very outer layer of the marshmallow to make a sticky cube and toss in a teaspoon of the cocoa mix to coat. 

Click on the link below for the recipe: