With the cold weather we’ve been having a good cup of hot chocolate really hits the spot! You can buy all manner of mixes for hot chocolate these days, but I prefer the kind Granny made for me when I was a little girl. Not only does it taste better, it’s also easy to make, and much cheaper than buying the packaged kind.
Granny’s Hot Chocolate Recipe
- 1/2 tablespoon sugar (or less if you don’t like yours super sweet)
- 2 teaspoons cocoa
- 1 tablespoon hot water
- 1 cup milk (Or if you prefer water-I don’t like hot chocolate made with water. I swear it tastes like a barn stall. No I don’t actually know what a barn stall tastes like, but I’m thinking it tastes like hot chocolate made with water.)
Mix the sugar and cocoa in the bottom of your cup and then add the tablespoon of hot water and stir. All that’s left to do is add your milk and then heat it in the microwave. Or you can do like Granny used to do before microwaves and heat your milk on the stove. If you have a very large coffee mug you may need to double the recipe to fill your cup.
Hot chocolate is one of my favorite things in life and it’s doubly good on a cold snowy day. Go here to see how to make something to float in your hot chocolate.
Tipper
Grew up in the Midwest and we never had coffee in our household while my grandmother was still alive, due to caffeine was considered unhealthy to the nervous system. Instead, for hot drinks during the cold months we would have hot chocolate and Postum.
When I became older, I would drink a cup of hot coffee and go straight to bed and have a good rest before I had to go to work. To me, coffee had a reverse affect on me, until recently. Seems a cup of caffeine now disturbs my sleep. lol
Was happy to see the comment about cooks.com having a postum recipe I bought it over the last 30 years whenever I was feeling homesick and nice warm cup of roasted cereal was always very comforting. Thank you for the memories.
I just watched your video about your Granny’s Hot Chocolate and Postum. I searched for Postum and my goodness it has jumped up in price but did you know Cooks.com has a Recipe for homemade Postum? I’ve never tried it, just thought you might find it interesting.
A cap full or two of vanilla makes it good. Also a little coffee is good it hot chocolate.
Uncle Al-stay tuned for more info on the white and red squares : )
Blind Pig The Acorn
Celebrating and Preserving the
Culture of Appalachia
http://www.blindpigandtheacorn.com
Chocolate was apparently known as a drink long before anyone thought about eating the stuff. Thank heavens for grannies everywhere!
Tipper,
and Wanda….Wanda are you sure you’re not the Wanda that lived up the road from me in Anderson county…We did that very thing, mixed cocoa and sugar and dipped it like and pretend it was snuff….When we got caught, Mom gave us the “dickins”! LOL
Oh, sweet memories!
When we were kids, we’d sneak & mix cocoa & sugar–we called it snuff & ate it while pretending we were dipping.
you picked a fine day for this recipe — warms the body and soothes the soul! So very glad to clarified the barn stall issue. I might just go make a cup of cocoa and read a book.
Yuh huh…I ain’t interested in licking no barn stalls!
This is exactly how I make my hot cocoa, and I add a dash of cinnamon just because I love chocolate and cinnamon. I don’t use hot water either, whole milk with a splash of cream. Much healthier than mixes too.
I always have a cup of hot cocoa before going to bed. It helps me sleep better.
I look forward to those relaxing few minutes each evening. Takes away all stress.
LOL! I agree Tipper, hot chocolate made with water tastes pretty bad to me too. Going to make me a cup before I venture out to work on this cold, snowy day we’re having here. The snow came a day early!
Tipper,
That Hot Chocolate looks so good, but
I can’t put down this Coffee long
enough to fix a cup. I’m a Coffee Nut!
I use to make Hot Chocolate tho, and
loved it made with Milk.
The Blind Pig and the Acorn always has
interesting things for our enjoyment:
a nice way to start the day…Ken
Tipper,
and Diane…how could I have forgotten the toast. Your comment reminded me. Mom made cinnamon toast…butter a big piece of white bread (back in the 40’s), sprinkle sugar on top of the butter, sprinkle cinnamon on top of the sugar…put under that old government stove broiler…be sure and watch…It came out a little crunchy with the sugar melded into the cinnamon…so good with hot chocolate and sometimes that is all we had for breakfast in the olden days!
Thanks Tipper,
Tipper, My hubby & i belong to the yummy cinnamon toast club too! Also, I have a favorite cup that belonged to my dearly departed precious mom.
The fabulous things that can be made with a simple box of cocoa. My Mother made fudge, hot chocolate, and an occasional chocolate pie. No bonafide country girl would ever ruin her hot chocolate with water. Water is for tea lovers. Can’t wait to see what you float on top of your chocolate.
Yummy! Just add a candy cane and you will have the best treat ever. I hope you are about to give us the recipe for the (peppermint marshmallow?) in the picture.
One of my favorite memories is the one of my Mom making hot chocolate; same recipe, but in a saucepan. If Mom didn’t have whole milk, she used powered milk.
She also made toast in the oven under the broiler element. This served a two-fold purpose, warmth as well as a quick breakfast. Toast and hot homemade chocolate milk remain one of my favorite
treats as well as memories.
Diane
I will admit to one strong yen I have: I am definitely a “choco-holic!” It must have started in two ways: My mother making hot chocolate for us as Tipper describes her grandmother making it. And the second way I became a “choco-holic” early in my life was getting a “chocolate drop” piece of candy from behind the glass candy case at my Grandfather Collins’s country store, with his word, “If you’ll be a good little girl, I’ll give you a chocolate drop!” I must have been especially good in his eyes because he nearly always gave me more than one chocolate drop! And in those two ways began my life-long craze for chocolate! Add to that my Aunt Northa’s chocolate pie and I was a goner, indeed, for chocolate. Every time I make a cup of hot chocolate and enjoy it now, I remember how good chocolate was in those days! One of our truly exotic pleasures of country life in the mountains!
Tipper,
It posted, oh yea! it worked!
So, I wanted to say about yesterdays post.
I see where you found where Jack Frost hides his beard! I hope he doesn’t find it again anytime soon.
Tell the girls that I loved their painted rocks. I love to paint rocks too. I finally got over my hating to paint natures bounty, when I found I could buy them, any size, at the Rock Yard down the highway from here. Those nice smooth ones too.
I have sold a few rocks to use for marking herbs…and my favorites are the big arrow shaped rocks that I paint snake heads one…usually scares the p-jibbers out of mice, people,etc.
Wish I could have been there with you all painting rocks!…
Thanks Tipper,
Hi Tipper,
If it’s good enough for you and granny, it’s good enough for us. We’ll be trying it today. I’m wit you about it made with water. Ughhhh.
Hi Tipper,
If it’s good enough for you and granny, it’s good enough for us. We’ll be trying it today. I’m wit you about it made with water. Ughhhh.
Love good hot chocolate. My curiosity has got me though. What are the pink/red and white squares next to your cup?
Tipper,
Make this a zillion times greater and that is the recipe I remember my Mother making. On a cold snowy day or winter evening an aroma would waft its way into the living room. As children, when we got the chocolate sign, if Mom was in the kitchen we knew it was hot chocolate, if Dad was in the kitchen we knew it was his great cocoa fudge! Sometime Mom would take the mixer and whip hers until it was so foamy…Why, I dunno! But, it always made it smoother and tastier somehow! Maybe it just cooled it off a bit.
We always loved marshmellows in our hot chocolate, but when I was in high school, I met a girl from the North of us (Kaintuck) that always put a dollop of vanilla ice cream in her hot chocolate. Yummm, is it ever good melting with that good vanilla flavor. Funny, I don’t like whipped cream dollops in my hot chocolate!
Great Post Tipper,
I am trying to post today after yesterdays fiasco!
Tipper, I don’t tell you often enough how much I enjoy your blog. It is a treat I look forward to each morning. Thank you so very much.
I cannot think about hot chocolate without remembering a time as a kid when my neighbor friend called and said, “Lisa, we were wonderin’ if you wanted to come up and have some hot chocolate.” Of course, I said, “Sure,” then she asked, “Do y’all have any cocoa?” and I said, “yes” and she asked, “Do y’all have any milk?”
I concur with you that Hot Chocolate, homemade or mix requires Milk and being a country boy I agree raw whole milk is best even though the Food Police now claims it is so dangerous. With all the stuff the Government has determined to be so dangerous I wonder how anyone in my generation survived.
Was Jackie’s wife a science teacher?
Eating chalk was one of those attention grabbers I used to do to introduce “Chemicals All Around Us”. – While I was checking roll I’d just grab up a piece of chalk from the chalk board and take a bite – then get into a discussion of calcium. Toward the end of my teaching career I had to be more creative and talk about missing chalk boards and then pulling out a box of chalk. . . . Always had Dr. Pepper in my mug to chase it down. Hot Chocolate might have helped too!
my granny would a little vanilla to the pot or sometimes grate one of those sticks of cinnamon, just a little. but boy oh boy, hot cocoa good any ole way
What a great way to start a cold morning, maybe even just a chilly morning. Here I am in Northern FL and it was 32 at seven this morning. I am, when I am finished here, going to the pantry and have myself a delicious cup of Tipper’s hot chocolate. Yummy!
P.S. The sun is shining brightly, so it might get to the high forties/low fifties today.
I love hot chocolate too! My mother used to make it in a pot. She used Hershey’s cocoa and sugar and milk and she would add just a little bit of vanilla flavoring. She would keep a pot simmering during the cold weather and it would taste so good when you came in out of the cold. It was a real treat when we got marshmallows to melt in it. I loved coming home from school and finding a pot of hot cocoa and home made teacakes. I don’t like cocoa made with water either!
Tipper
That is the same recipe I grew up with. When I was a youngun we never had store bought milk so I must say that hot chocolate made with fresh milk with all it’s cream still there, well it’s near certain you’ll have a second cup. Thanks for all your post. I really enjoy them. I grew up and live in the hills of middle Tn but I sure do love the mountains and appreciate some of the differences in living in the mountains and the hills. Each has its own culture with many similarities and a good number of differences. Oh well I’m beginning to ramble so I’ll stop. Be blessed with a joyous day. John
Hot chocolate made with cocoa always tastes better than the mixes. It’s more like real chocolate…guess that’s because it is!
The only thing I can imagine floating in it is marshmallows!
Great recipe, going to have to give it a shot here this evening!
You’ve never tasted a barn stall!!!
My wife won’t eat sweet peas. She says they taste like chalk. I keep asking her when and why she ate chalk. I don’t had a answer yet.
Hot chocolate always hits the spot. I went to a baby shower in one of the local churches in Missouri and they had a big coffee urn full of hot chocolate. They made it at the church kitchen and did it go over big. The men attended as well, I sure they had to make more.Mother made it on the stove like your mother/grandmother and she would put a small slice of butter/vanilla in . If was so creamy, to Fat Fat for dieters.
This is the same way my mother and grandmother made it only it was all heated together on the stove.
Trying this. Thanks!
Tipper: This hot chocolate is the perfect solution for easing the bite of a cold morning. I do believe I will RE-START my morning with a cup of hot cocoa before I go swimming!
Eva Nell