Christmas Cocoa (gluten free, refined sugar free, peanut free, dairy free option)

During the colder months of the year a lot of people gravitate toward hot chocolate to warm them up.  Me?  I'm more of a coffee and tea drinker than a hot chocolate type of person.  But, the wind has been blowing, and for some odd reason I've just had this hankering for hot chocolate.

But, I wanted to make my hot chocolate taste...I don't know...Christmasy.  So, I came up with this recipe.  The ingredients may seem a bit odd, but trust me on this.  It tastes great!

I tried this recipe with regular sugar, palm sugar and honey.  Honey as a sweetener in this can not be beat.  I'm not sure exactly why, but it really augments the cocoa instead of making it just taste sweet.  So, do try to use honey in this if you can!

As dairy alternatives go for this, I liked this with full fat coconut milk (from the can), but that gets kinda spendy as this serves four people.  I tried almond milk and it comes out really runny that way, so if using rice or almond milk for this, I'd whisk in about 1 TBS of tapioca or arrowroot starch into the cold milk before you heat everything...that'll help to thicken the mixture up a bit.  If going with regular cow dairy for this, 2 cups of whole milk and 2 cups of half and half make a really nice combo for the hot chocolate.

So, anyway, enjoy some hot cocoa with some somewhat unusual holiday flavors to it (trust me, it is AWESOME!).

Christmas Cocoa (Gluten free, Refined sugar free, peanut free, dairy free option)

Ingredients:

• 4 Cups Whole milk or milk alternative or 4 cups full fat coconut milk (from the can).  A couple of other options above!
• 1/3 Cup Unsweetened cocoa (be sure it's peanut free)
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1/4 cup strong leftover coffee
• 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. ground cloves
• Pinch of salt

Place milk in a medium saucepan and heat over medium low heat until nice and hot (make sure not to let it boil!).  Whisk in the remaining ingredients and continue to whisk until everything is well incorporated and smooth.

Serves four.  If you don't mind adding some sugar to the recipe, feel free to add some Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips to your mug and top with a few marshmallows (be sure those are peanut free too).  This stuff is great if you also use a cinnamon stick to stir it.  Yum!!!

Enjoy!