How To Make Parisian Hot Chocolate

This Hot Chocolate recipe or Chocolat Chaud is inspired by the famous Angelina Parisian Hot Chocolate. Rich, creamy and silky, it is made with just two ingredients and tastes just like the famous one in the Angelina Paris Salon de thé. They key to this incredibly rich hot chocolate is simple ingredients that bring out the flavour of the dark or bittersweet chocolate. I'm sharing a recipe for making this hot chocolate in the Thermomix as well as for making it on the stovetop.

About This Hot Chocolate Recipe

How to make French hot chocolate? So many countries have their own version of hot chocolate and the French hot chocolate is one of the simplest. It's just chocolate and milk or cream. It's even easier than Italian hot chocolate which is a bit more complex as they add cornstarch to thicken it to an almost pudding-like consistency. Mexican hot chocolate has sugar and spices added to it.

How to make a really good hot chocolate? The key is really good chocolate and lots of it! Like the best mashed potatoes from Joel Robuchon that has a high amount of butter, the best hot chocolate has a lot of dark chocolate. The best hot chocolate in the world is said to be at Angelina in Paris (and locations around the world) and they actually use a blend of chocolate from Africa's Niger, Ghana and Ivory Coast. They have been serving it for 120 years in their Belle Époque salon de thé. Frequent visitors to Angelina in the past include Coco Chanel and Marcel Proust.

Is drinking hot chocolate healthy? Is dark chocolate healthy? Sure! I'm willing to believe that ;) If you consider that there are only two ingredients and one is dark chocolate and milk then it is. You don't need any additional sugar in your hot chocolate.

The Ingredients for Hot Chocolate or Chocolat Chaud are so simple:

Dark or bittersweet chocolate (your favourite one to eat), I wouldn't go over 82% cocoa unless you like that. I think 70% is a good choice.
Milk - full cream milk is best although Angelina use semi skimmed milk.
Whipped cream to serve

At Angelina you can order a croissant to dip in your hot chocolate or one of their Mont Blanc chestnut cakes.

Tips For Making Hot Chocolate

1 - I tried using a few different types of chocolate from a 70% Honduras to a 82% Madagascar dark chocolate in this and they all worked really well. There was no really standout nor did I really discern that much of a difference.

2 - Make sure to grate the chocolate well in a food processor or in the Thermomix. You want it to be a fine powder.

3 - Heat the milk until it is just boiling and then whisk in the chocolate. The whisking will ensure that the chocolate powder melts and emulsifies quickly.

4 - You can adjust this recipe easily. All you need to do is set the amount of chocolate you have and double the quantity of milk so you have a 1:2 ratio. If you make a very large batch you may need to increase the time in the Thermomix.

5 - This hot chocolate is very rich, thick and not overly sweet. If you prefer a thinner hot chocolate add hot water to the hot chocolate until you reach the consistency that you like. You can also add sugar if you prefer it sweeter. If you like sweeter, thinner textured hot chocolates, then this may not be your cup of...chocolate!

Hot Chocolate Recipe

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An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott

Recipe Overview

Preparation time: 2 minutes

Cooking time: 5 minutes

Makes 2 teacups

Ingredients Needed

150g/5ozs dark chocolate
300ml/10.6flozs full cream milk

Step-By-Step Instructions

Step 1 - Place the dark chocolate in a food processor and blitz until very fine. Heat the milk in a small saucepan until almost boiling. Whisk in the chocolate powder until smooth. Serve with whipped cream (optional).

Thermomix directions 1: Place the dark chocolate in the TM bowl and set to 10 seconds, speed #8. Add the milk and set to 5 minutes, 80C/speed#1.5.

Personal Note

For this chocolat chaud, I used some chocolate I got in Switzerland. Last month I was on a tour of Switzerland to write about Swiss chocolate. Some of the chocolate was from factory visits, some that I bought for gifts and to eat myself and some just from the hotel. Yes my hotel in Zurich had free chocolate in their lobby that you can help yourself to, it's that much a part of their culture. It also figures as we learnt that Switzerland has the highest per capita chocolate consumption in the world, around 11.8kgs or 26lbs on average a year.

I ended up with around 5kgs/11lbs of chocolate that would put me over the weight in my luggage. My bag weighed 19kgs/42lbs when I left Sydney and weighed 26kg/57lbs on my way back. I actually had my luggage marked heavy because of all of the chocolate (I had a 30kg/66lb limit). But when confronted with a range of chocolate that I had never seen before I could not resist.

Most of the chocolate had nuts in it or some kind of filling but I was given a few bars of pure dark chocolate without any add ins so I decided to use those. And it was worth the antagonism at check-in at Zurich airport!

So tell me Dear Reader, do you believe that dark chocolate is healthy? Do you like French hot chocolate?