Hot Cocoa Almond Deluxe
During the early part of this year I posted "Hot Cocoa, My Way." Here's the concoction I came up with this morning. It's more complex, but the basic principle is the same: start with cocoa powder, and go dark.
- 1/2 c Hershey's cocoa
- 1/3 c sugar
- 1 tbsp Agave
- 1 tsp maple syrup
- 1 tsp Terva siirappi
- 2 tbsp tar syrup liqueur.
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tiny sprinkle cayenne
- 1 dash nutmeg
- 1 dash salt
- 2 cinnamon sticks
- 1 dash allspice
- 3 cups Silk brand "light" vanilla almond milk.
Put the cocoa, sugar, agave, tar syrup, tar liqueur, and vanilla in a pot with 1 cup of the almond milk. Bring to a slow boil while whisking and stirring with one of these flat sauce-whisk thingies. Start slow so you don't throw powdered cocoa everywhere.
Once everything's wet, go crazy. Foam is fine. You want it SMOOOTH.
Add the spices, and simmer until the alcohol in the liqueur and the vanilla has boiled off. Ten minutes? Dunno. With the exception of the cinnamon sticks and some foam, the stuff should be very, very smooth. If you have a silicone spatula, you'll probably want to scrape the sides and whisk that stuff back in.
Mix in the rest of the almond milk, and gently whisk everything together. Let it stand so the cinnamon sticks can steep for a bit. The longer it stands, the cinnamonnier it gets. You can get some real bite to it if you've got half a day to kill.
When it's done, it may be cold. Bummer. You can heat it back up on the stove, or just microwave it a cup at a time.
This stuff is *strong.* You may want to cut it with more almond milk, or even just water if you're a real light-weight.
If you don't have tar syrup or tar liqueur, you have my sympathy. I'm almost out of both, and I haven't yet found anybody importing it (besides my friends from Helsinki.) You might be able to get by with a drop of liquid smoke, and more maple syrup. I know that's what I might be reduced to in a few short weeks.
(cross-posted from howardtayler.com)