Death by chocolate: a cereal part II
So, I had never had any type of red wine hot chocolate before I started doing research for this recipe. I wanted to find something interesting and different that wouldn’t be the usual baking cakes or expected chocolate recipes. I had this pinned up on my Pinterest board and thought it was just about the perfect time of year to whip up some warming drinks. I’m not a huge fan of cider (too sweet!) but this seemed right up my alley…
This was, at the same time, easy to make (only 4 ingredients) and also very difficult to make. The balance of the ingredients is quite difficult to get - and is very dependent on personal taste. Do you like dark bitter chocolate? How sweet do you take your hot drinks? I also thought at first I could get away with using cheap red wine because it would be heated and mixed with other things... nope! Bitter chocolate and bitter wine is, as you can imagine, a bitter mistake! But lucky for you, I’ve messed it up a couple of times already so you don’t have to!
If I’m really honest, I struggled a bit with this post. I love taking food photos and making up recipes but I get so annoyed with myself when they aren’t right the first time (i.e. my “genius” vision didn’t work out). I struggled with the lighting, I struggled with the wine ingredient and I struggled to motivate myself to write, because I had already done what I consider the “fun” part. It has also been a tough few weeks of work and plenty of pretty huge things happening in our personal lives. But that is unfair of me, because then I can’t share the result of the work, which is also part of the fun. And I do really want to share it with you! I want you to read it and make the things I’ve made and enjoy reading this blog! I want to be disciplined and post often and post things I am proud of. I will be better and get control of my brain for next time, promise.
The recipe below will yield a dense, rich, very creamy and boozy, almost ganache-like hot chocolate. If you serve as is, serve in small cups or shot glasses like I did - it is too rich to drink much more than that, but oh man, so satisfyingly decadent for that demon inside who wants all the cream, sugar, bitter chocolate and booze… If a lighter style is your taste, swop some of the cream for milk. Even lighter still - dilute the finished product with an extra 3 parts of milk (to 1 part ganache) for a lighter though still quite decadent (but more expected) kind of hot chocolate. I also adding a dash cointreau (or triple sec) it was DELICIOUS - chocolate orange ganache anyone?
To the recipe!
