Maybe one of the most misunderstood drinks has to be hot chocolate. Although it is associated with being a bedtime drink it is a remarkable comfort while reading a good novel on a cold afternoon in May or June (have had lots of those lately). The problem is that an acceptable hot chocolate substitute is usually obtained from a packet mix – this is perfectly good, but is no substitute for the real thing made with good quality cocoa and good quality chocolate. I will share with you my favourite hot chocolate recipe (a secret recipe handed down from my great aunt Betty). This is not a recipe for dieters …

BestCuppa’s Luxurious Hot Chocolate (courtesy of Great Aunt Betty)

Ingredients

1 pint of full cream milk

3 ounces of 72% cocoa solids chocolate

4 tablespoons of cocoa powder

4 tablespoons of brown sugar (or to taste)

1 glug of brandy or rum (omit if abstaining)

Optional additions: a little pinch of cinnamon or chilli (the chilli was added to great aunty Bets recipe as chilli hadn’t been invented in her day) and 2 fl oz of single cream

Serves 2

Gently heat the milk and then break up the chocolate into the heated milk (small pieces). Add the cocoa powder and then whisk while still gently heating until all solids have been incorporated. While still simmering, but not boiling, add the sugar and alcohol and then any additional flavourings.

Finally pour the mixture carefully into two tall mugs. Stir with a long spoon (add marshmallows if you like – I like blue marshmallows, but they are difficult to find) and then enjoy piping hot. For an even more luxurious treat, dip a Caprice praline filled biscuit or Cigarette Russes biscuit.

Do you like this recipe? Do you have a better recipe for hot chocolate? Bestcuppaintown has just added a ‘Recipes’ page to our website. If you would like us to include your recipes for cakes, beverages, recipes that include tea and coffee as ingredients, and any other recipe for an item that would conceivably be served in a café (even your favourite sandwich or baguette), then please email us. We’ll include your name and email address with every recipe we list.

Last week, while on holiday in Devon I took time out to visit the Caffé Culture 2009 exhibition in London Olympia. It was a long day with a 6:10am train from Newton Abbot Station, but bolstered with a strong latte and a Cornish pasty I braved my journey up to the Smoke, looking forward to finding new products and some new friends.

I was not disappointed as the day proved to be great with some good coffee and interesting items. As an overall impression I noticed that there were a great number of tea companies at the show and I was told that indeed many of these are giving tea a new image and it is becoming trendy again. Some examples of small contemporary tea brands include Tea Pigs, Pure Tea, Canton Tea Co, Solaris Botanicals and the Pure Tea Company. All of these have a trendy image with modern names for their tea blends (including herbal and fruit varieties) which are a million miles from the traditional tea image. In addition the majority of the tea bags were in a PLA (polylactic acid) or nylon material and pyramid shaped, presumably to give superior infusion of the leaves. I would say tea is definitely looking to be a refreshing alternative.

A new experience for me was my first Chai, which is a kind of sweetened tea that is brewed with spices and steamed milk; this is definitely worth trying as an alternative to your normal latte as it is a much lighter drink and gives a whole new dimension to tea (I have come across an increasing number of coffee shops in the UK offering Chai).

Of course items that never escape my attention at an exhibition are cakes and biscuits and there were a great number of new ones to sample. Some highlights were the new cookie range from Honeybuns, including the triple chocolate tinker, the honeyed apple cookie and the almond and salted pistachio cookie (yummy and also gluten free), the limited edition strawberry and clotted cream cookie from Byron Bay, the Cakes-to-Go new cake square flavours (passion cake, chocolate, ginger and lemon and rustic apple), the Honeyrose Bakery’s organic handbaked kids cakes and the Artisan Biscuits’ ‘My Favourite Bear’ range in chocolate, banana and raspberry and also their ‘Two by Two’ organic biscuits, again for children. Loaded down with cake and biscuit samples I went in search of quirky products and the elusive Gwilym Davies (the winner of the 2009 World Barista Champion title).

I have always loved barista/coffee/latte art and Coffee Treats are marketing a wonderful device that integrates the stencil and the chocolate into a single device that can put a design on the top of frothy coffee with no waste of chocolate at all (very neat). But one of the main highlights of the show for me had to be Vietnamese Weasel Coffee (ca phe cu’t chon) produced from robusta beans consumed by weasels, collected from their faeces and then roasted plain mixed with the fat from a particular small chicken and finally treated with a special herb wine – apparently this coffee once tasted is never forgotten … unfortunately there were no samples on offer (!) A neat little product which I thought would be a boon to the drinks stations available in hotel rooms across the UK and Europe was the coffee cube from Shelton Imports; these are individual servings of flavoured instant coffee (amaretto, brandy, sambuca, lemon, vanilla, original and cinnamon) wrapped in a vacuum sealed foil (they also did very good chocolate coated coffee beans). Finally I came across an old coffee shop favourite, the Lotus caramelised biscuit (known up and down the country as a single serve coffee give away). Lotus are now keen to extend the brand and are about to release a purchaseable biscuit twin pack (larger than the single serving) and also a spreadable version similar to peanut butter called Speculoos (already released in Belgium).

All in all the day was wonderful and I look forward to visiting the show next year which will be hosting the World Barista Championships. Our next coffee highlight will be the Coffeena exhibition in Cologne in June 2009.