I’d always made it with water…or rather my mother always made it with water when I was kid. I hadn’t even ever heard of using milk for making hot chocolate…at least, not until I went to Canada 2 years ago. It was there that I first saw people doing this. I thought it was a bit odd at first, then thought that it did make sense considering that a cold chocolate liquid would probably be chocolate milk.
Still, I couldn’t bear to try it (also considering that I hate milk with a passion). I stuck with my regular water ingredients my entire time up there.
I also found that others use water as well and, upon telling them that a lot use milk instead, they looked at me weird. I nodded. “Yeah, I know. Weird huh? But different strokes for different folks”
I make hot chocolate with 1 cup of milk, 1 tsp cocoa powder (usually a little more toward the “heaping” than the “level”), and 1 tsp sugar. (If you’re going to try this yourself, make sure to put the cocoa and sugar in the bottom of the mug and then add just a couple teaspoons of milk and stir it to make a paste and eliminate all the lumps. Otherwise, you end up with lots of clumps of cocoa powder floating around.)
The instant mix is okay, but it’s a little too sweet for my taste, and it seems like we’re always running out of it, anyway, whereas we always have milk and cocoa powder and sugar on hand.
Other than the water used to make the coffee? Not when I make it, and I doubt when coffee shops make it they add water. Why would you want to water it down?
Sorry I didn’t intend to whoosh you. I was hoping there was atleast some water in the equation somewhere. I was making a joke, being sarcastic/pedantic to Bear_Neno statement that between using water and milk he uses coffee. pure coffee. Not ‘coffee’ in the sense of made coffee, i.e. coffee and water.
I’m weird. I use both at the same time. 1/2 water 1/2 milk. I like the milk but it can make my stomache hurt if I drink too much, so my mixture works for me. Nice and creamy but not too thick.
All hot chocolate has milk in it. No, really, the mixes use powdered milk. That’s why you can use water in them without them tasting like cocoa powder dumped into water.
At any rate, when I use mixes, I make them using mostly water, but with a bit of milk or (preferably) half and half mixed in. It makes it taste richer and creamier, more satisfying, so I drink fewer cups. When I make it from scratch, I like to use whole milk, or at least add some half and half to the reduced fat milk.
Mostly I use water, although I grew up using milk and never even thought water was possible until a friend mentioned it.
Nowadays, though, it’s usually water-it’s easier to clean out the measuring cup used to heat the water and you don’t have to watch to make sure it doesn’t scald.
Anecdote: I’ve had both, and find that having it with water is completely bland and tasteless. Having it with milk is like there’s a party in my mouth and everyone’s invited and they have naked twister.
