This warming hot chocolate with a twist, comes to you from the Kayotic Kitchen blog – its mastermind, Kay, calls herself ‘the cooking Dutch girl’ (she has the wooden shoes to prove it!) and says, “It’s is all about having fun with food and my camera".
Hot Chocolate with pink peppercorns
Makes 2 generous mugs
- 200g dark chocolate (you really don’t want milk chocolate for this)
- 1 pint milk
- 1⁄2 cinnamon stick
- 100ml water
- 3 tbsp sugar
- Pink peppercorns
1. Technically, pink peppercorns are impostors – they’re not peppercorns at all, they’re berries. Use as much or as little as you like. 1 tsp, lightly crushed, will give some zing.
2. Put the crushed peppercorns into a saucepan and add water and sugar. Break a cinnamon stick in half and add it to the water. Bring it to a boil. Simmer it over low heat for about five minutes, until it transforms into a thick, amber-colored syrup. Sieve the syrup.
3. Break the dark chocolate into small pieces and heat it in a bain-marie or very carefully in the microwave. Heat the milk too, then stir into the melted chocolate. It works best to just let it be for a while, 15–30 minutes or so, and then reheat it. The chocolate milk will be more chocolatey and velvety this way.
4. Add as much, or as little, of the pink peppercorn syrup to the hot chocolate as you like. It really adds pizzazz.