A warm fire, a good book and a big mug of hot chocolate are the ingredients for a perfect day, especially when it's Mexican Hot Chocolate.

Recently, we finished the touching novel, Esperanza Rising. It's a story about a young Mexican girl who must leave her life of wealth and privilege to come to America. Though it is the land of opportunity, she must begin her life anew in poverty.

The book is full of Mexican heritage and tradition. Because of this, we've been absorbing as much of the Mexican culture as we can. And, since food is our favorite way to add adventure to our homeschool, we learned how to make several new foods. As the weather has begun to get colder, we were looking for a new hot chocolate recipe and discovered a recipe for Mexican Hot Chocolate. Of course we modified it a bit for our taste buds, and the results were fantastic! Well, the girls felt it could use a bit more sugar. But when I added whipped cream and cookies, I thought it was perfect.
See what you think of our Mexican Hot Chocolate recipe.

What You Will Need for Mexican Hot Chocolate:
- 2 cups of whole milk. You can use skim milk, if you prefer. We use skim milk in our daily lives, but we like a thicker hot chocolate.
- 6-8 ounces of semi-sweet chocolate chips. Don't choose a cheap brand. The better the brand of chocolate, the better the hot chocolate.
- A bit of sugar, nutmeg, vanilla and cayenne pepper.
- Heavy whipping cream, if you want to make your own whipped cream.
Steps to make an awesome cup of Mexican Hot Chocolate:
- Start by adding milk to a medium saucepan and heating on medium-low.
- Add in about 3 tablespoons of sugar. My kids recommend adding more, so feel free to make yours sweeter.
- Add in 1/2 teaspoon of ground nutmeg and a pinch of cayenne pepper. The pepper will give the hot chocolate a little kick. So, if you feel your "littles" will not appreciate it, you can leave it out.


4. Slowly add in the chocolate chips. Again, choose a good brand. These are our favorites.
5. Whisk until all chocolate chips are melted. Keep a constant watch or this will boil over. (Don't ask how me I know.)
6. Remove from heat and add 3/4 teaspoon of vanilla.
7. If you want, now is the time to whip up some fresh whipped cream or grab the Reddi-Wip out of the fridge.
8. Pour into mugs and serve.
Enjoy with some cookies and a good book (or two or three)!


| Cook Time | 10 minutes |
| Servings |
cups
|
- 4 cups whole milk
- 6 oz semisweet chocolate chips
- 3 Tbsp sugar or more if you have a sweet tooth
- 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1 pinch cayenne pepper
- 3/4 tsp vanilla
Ingredients
|
|
- In a medium saucepan, bring milk to a low simmer over medium heat.
- Whisk in sugar, nutmeg and pepper.
- Slowly add chocolate chips, whisking constantly until melted.
- Remove chocolate from heat and whisk in vanilla.
- Pour into mugs and add whipped cream. Enjoy!!




Dachelle, When I try to print the recipe I get a ‘This page is forbidden’ notice. Any idea why?
Oh no! It appears the program I use for recipes has been discontinued. I’ll work on getting that fixed. Sorry about that.