How to Make Hot Chocolate

Rob Kingsbury: Hi! I am Rob Kingsbury with Kingsbury Chocolates and today I am going to show you how to make a perfect cup of hot chocolate as well as two other variations, one infused with lavender and ground pistachios and the other one an Aztec version with chipotle peppers and ground cinnamon stick.

So to start of, let s talk a little about our ingredients here today, really, really simple. I am using a whole milk today but you can use any kind of milk you would like even including soy milk. For my chocolate I am using semi-sweet chocolate shavings, but again that s up to you if you d like to use white chocolate or milk chocolate or even bittersweet chocolate, that s your personal preference. For the infused chocolates that we re doing here today, I have imported lavender buds from Provence, my pistachios nuts, I have salt roasted. The peppers I am using are chipotle peppers and I am using fresh grated cinnamon stick.

So let s talk also a little bit about our utensils here today. Again, very simple; I am using a saucepan to heat my milk in, a whisk to combine the chocolate shavings with the hot milk together, a strainer to separate the infused lavender and the infused pepper out of the steamed milk, and a scoop, one cup, measuring cup for the 12 ounce portion of hot chocolates that I am doing today, and also remember we are in a kitchen we have scalding hot milk here on our stove top. So make sure that your saucepan handles are turned away from the edge, so small hands on grabbing on that and pulling it down. All right, a little bit more about myself, I am owner of Kingsbury Chocolates in Alexandria, Virginia. I am also a co-owner of the new ACKC Coco Bar in Washington DC. Let s go ahead and make that perfect cup of hot chocolate.