Chocolate or cocoa? Looking for an ideal mix

By: By Michael Hastings | JOURNAL FOOD EDITOR
Published: February 10, 2010

My kids have been asking for hot chocolate a lot this winter. It's not the cold that brings out the craving. It's the snow.

And though most of our second snow has melted, I want to be prepared for the next one.

I love hot chocolate, but I like it done right. I want lots of real chocolate flavor. I want it sweetened just enough, but not too much. And I don't want it burdened with a bunch of preservatives or unnecessary ingredients.

So I broke down hot chocolate -- or hot cocoa -- into its three components and did some experiments, with the kids as eager test subjects.

First, I looked at the liquid. Hot chocolate is supposed to be a dairy drink. But which is best: whole milk, skim or half-and-half? Or do you really need milk at all? Will water do the trick? Then I wouldn't have to worry about stores being sold out of milk during a snowstorm.

Second, I wanted to decide between chocolate and cocoa. Does the extra stirring to melt chocolate result in a more chocolatey taste?

Third, I wanted to find the least amount of sugar that hot chocolate or cocoa needs so I wouldn't be serving the kids a liquid form of candy.

I decided to test whole milk, 2 percent, nonfat, half-and-half and water for the liquid.

Richer not always better

For the chocolate, I chose regular unsweetened cocoa, semisweet chocolate chips and a combination of the two.

I used a constant amount of sugar when testing the chocolate and liquid. Once I had the first two ingredients nailed, I did a final trial with varying levels of sugar.

The kids tasted these blind so they didn't know what they were getting.

Interestingly, in the dairy test the richest ingredients did not win out.

My 6-year-old son was happy to drink the water, i.e. lowest-calorie,version. My 12-year-old daughter pronounced it horrible. "Ew," she said.

They didn't thumb their noses at the richer half-and-half and whole-milk versions, but it was the 2 percent milk and nonfat milk versions that they declared their favorites. For the nonfat milk, I used the instant powdered milk, simply because it's nonperishable and would be easier to have on hand at all times.

Trial and errors

Despite my own tendencies toward rich food, I agreed with the kids. The richer dairy products actually detracted from the chocolate taste. I gave a slight edge to the 2 perecent milk over the nonfat milk, but both were good.

Next came the chocolate. After tasting through several combinations of unsweetened cocoa and semisweet chocolate, the all-cocoa version came out on top.

I then varied the sugar in the cocoa, and I even went back and tried different amounts of sugar with chocolate and with a combination of chocolate and cocoa.

Still, cocoa came out on top, probably because the powdered cocoa mixes so thoroughly into the milk.

I tried adding a pinch of salt, as some recipes recommend, but we agreed that the salt didn't improve it.

In the end, we liked 1 tablespoon of unsweetened cocoa and 1 tablespoon of sugar with 1 cup of 2 percent milk.

Second best was a ½ ounce of semisweet chips -- 30 to 35 chips or about 1½ tablespoons -- with no added sugar.

If you add chocolate, be aware of what kind it is and adjust the sugar accordingly.

Bittersweet, semisweet and milk chocolate have different amounts of sugar. Even different brands of the same type will vary on the sugar.

So before the next snowstorm, I will stock up on unsweetened cocoa powder. I will keep my fingers crossed that I can get some fresh skim milk before the stores are looted, but I'll also keep the nonfat dry milk on hand just in case.

Through all this, my son came up with a new name for hot cocoa. He calls it "loco cocoa."

Then again, maybe that's his description of how he feels after downing a cup or two.

mhastings@wsjournal.com

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