The Perfect Cup of Cocoa

A few weeks ago I wondered the isles of my favorite food-gathering place: Publix Supermarkets, picking up items for the week's meals. I grabbed coffee, espresso, brown sugar and then paused at the wide variety of hot cocoa mixes that promise a warming brew of satisfying chocolate on a cold night.

Like most people at one point or another, I've tried them all, willing to convince myself that the watery concoction in my favorite mug delivered what the box promised.

Why oh why, do I try to fool myself? Somewhere in the recesses of my memory, a smooth, deeply chocolate, totally satisfying cup of warmth rises to the top of my remembrance. What was I, five?

Then I think about the shelf before me; watery, so I add a second packet and my cup of cocoa becomes lumpy and even grainy. If I'm cognitive enough to pick the one with the picture of beautiful marshmallow's on top, I'm even further disappointed. The chewy lumps of white melt before the cup even touches my lips.

So I gave up and left behind the dreams of hot chocolate in the evening.

Then I found something wonderful. 

That night, a very cold and rainy evening, I cleaned up the kitchen and wished once more for the kind of hot cocoa I had when I was a child.  That's when I spotted it: the tin of Natural Hershey's Cocoa.

Yep, the dry raw chocolate I use to make brownies with. On it, the recipe for one perfect cup of Cocoa. 

Here it is:    2 TBSP sugar
                    2 TBSP Hershey's Cocoa
                    dash salt
                    1 cup milk
                    1/4 vanilla extract.

Heat it in the microwave or on the stove and whisk, whisk, whisk, until perfectly blended.  Oh my, what a difference! Smooth, creamy, chocolaty and totally satisfying.

Try it! It's exactly what you need on a cold rainy night. If you want add a marshmallow, but make it a real one.