A Perfect Mug of Cocoa
Making a perfect mug of cocoa is relatively simple if you allow your senses to guide your hands. Begin with good ingredients: half and half, filtered water, unsweetened cocoa powder, salt, and honey. No mix. Never use mix. Why define the flavor of your ideal cocoa with someone else’s taste buds?
I like to make exactly one huge mug of cocoa for myself. I measure only by the size of the cup I intend to drink from. If I am making some for me and a friend, I still choose the cups first. I read something about tea once that said thinner mugs were ideal because they would not draw the heat out of the tea too quickly. That’s why fine china is thinner than stoneware, and the nicer it is, the thinner and more translucent it is. For cocoa, thick-walled, the biggest mugs in the cabinet. I like either the large faux-Hull Pottery mug with the crack through the handle that I found abandoned as a pencil cup when I worked in Waggener Hall, or the Ghiradelli mug I bought when I visited San Francisco for a conference. For others, a smaller one, like the Indiana University class of 2001 mug. Most people can’t handle much of the intensity of my hot cocoa. Just a taste is too much for them. “Too rich,” they exclaim.
The proportions of ingredients are defined by the size of the mug. Leaving an inch at the top, fill the remaining space about halfway with half and half and top off with water. Pour it into a sauce pan to mix. If you have heavy whipping cream, I recommend using more water than cream as full cream can get very intense. Heat the base slowly, setting your burner to medium low heat. On my gas stove, that usually means about a five on the nine step dial, but my range isn’t exactly precise in its gas flow. I just have to watch the flame and turn the dial until it’s medium low. I can’t comment on electric stoves. I had one growing up and I burned everything I ever bothered to cook on it.
As the water/cream heats up, add some cocoa. I like about two to three heaping tablespoons for my large mug, but I like very strong cocoa. Experiment with different amounts to find the right chocolate intensity for you. This won’t be your only homemade cup of cocoa ever, right? Next, even before you start stirring, add some salt. You’ll need a bit more than you think. Sprinkle very fine salt over the floating mounds of cocoa until it looks like a dusting of snow on a mountainside.
Next, you stir. The cocoa wants to resist the cream, and bubbles of air coated in fine brown powder erupt. Let them be for now, but stir fairly vigorously and soon the cocoa will wet and form into dense, moist clumps. By this time, the cream should be heating up and the smell of buttery milk proteins will rise off the surface with the first glimpse of steam. You now can take some time to pop the blobs of cocoa against the side of the saucepan with the back of your spoon while you continue stirring. You want it to heat evenly to prevent it from scalding on the bottom, so you kill two birds with one stone. Don’t try to finish this task yet. It’s going to take a while to get them all, and you have other pressing matters to attend to. When you have gotten the heat to be about body temperature, maybe a bit hotter, you can begin to add the honey.
I began using honey in my cocoa because I had no other choice. I had stopped putting sugar in my coffee and I wasn’t baking much, so when the bag ran out, I didn’t replace it. I kept honey around for tea and the occasional batch of cut strawberries in the summer, and even though granulated sugar is called for in all the recipes online or on cocoa packages, I used what I had on hand. Sugar is sugar, right? Sweet is sweet, and honey, being liquid already, would melt into the warm cream faster than hard sugar. It turned out, I prefer the flavor of honey as it adds some depth to the chocolate flavor. I started out testing one tablespoon of honey per two of cocoa, but I quickly discovered I prefer a roughly one to one ratio. Two to one was a bit much for me, but I generally enjoy a fairly bitter cocoa. Again, experimentation is key to discover your preference. I used confectioners sugar for a time and discovered I had to dial the flavor back in, and it still always tasted different.
At this point, of course, you should begin tasting your cocoa to find your ideal sweetness level, but it is not yet ready to drink! Your ingredients still need to finish mixing and melding. The constant stirring to mix in the honey should provide ample opportunity to finish smearing the cocoa clumps, so the taste will be shaping up. Take the opportunity to sample after your first spoonful of honey, bearing in mind that your mouth may not always want the same sweetness. Is it too bitter? Add more honey. Is the flavor flat and bland despite having what you are certain is a sufficient amount of sugar? Add a bit more salt. Has it become all sweetness with just a hint of chocolate? Add cocoa and maybe salt. It is probably getting quite warm as you fine tune the flavor, and based on your experience with hot chocolate mixes, you probably think it’s ready to go, heat and serve. But it’s not!
Next you must stir and wait. Take this time to obliterate any stray clumps. Keep stirring. Steam will start to rise in earnest as heat continues to build. The room will fill with the warm, dark scent of buttery milk proteins as they relax their chemical bonds and merge with the honey and bitter cocoa. A light film will appear on the surface, which will mimic the surface of a completed, heat and serve cup of cocoa mix, but it’s not done yet.
As you stir, pay attention to the bottom of the pan. Drag the flat bottom of your spoon slowly across. Does it feel slimy like the mossy surface of a submerged rock in a slow-moving river? Now do the same with the tip of the spoon. Does it come up with a bit of rich, brown goo? Then your heat is a bit too high, and probably has been all along. Steam should be rising steadily now, but only a very thin layer of tiny bubbles should lie on the surface swirling smoothly with the strokes of your spoon. Stop stirring for a moment to watch the swirls ebb and flow. I watch them like clouds, seeing a face like Munch’s skeletal scream that morphs into a large dog head with floppy ears and shifts into an old man with long hair and a longer drooping mustache like an elderly master from old kung fu movie. His eyes are detailed and wise. I think he’d enjoy my cocoa.
Stir again, gently, checking the bottom of the pan once more. It should now start to feel slick and coated. Bubbles will start to appear on the surface of the liquid with noticeable frequency. When you pause stirring, the creamy cocoa will eventually start to form a thin membrane on the surface. This is good! It means the melding of the flavors is nearly complete. Your cocoa is becoming more than a warm mixture of sugar and ground up beans. It is becoming something new and magical, fragrant and bitter and sweet and thick. I sometimes like to capture the first membrane and collect it into little globules that, if done right, taste like melted chocolate chips. It’s not easy to do- I’ve only gotten it right two or three times, and I haven’t isolated the alchemical components to tell you how to accomplish it. It may have resulted from a supersaturation of solids, but I can’t be sure. I’ll work on it further this winter.
After that first crust, you should stir periodically until your cocoa just reaches a gentle simmer. I often have trouble waiting for this. Go do something small like filing your bills or emptying the dishwasher. Two or three minutes will do, but keep an eye out so your cocoa doesn’t start to boil vigorously. If it does, all is not lost! It will still be eminently drinkable, it might just be a little too thick or taste a smidge soured like a Hershey’s bar. I’ve never thrown out a pan of cocoa, even when I made terrible mistakes. They’re always drinkable, even if not ideal. The variations have proven be beneficial by giving me a chance to see what different tastes arise from the variations in production. One of the great failings of mass-produced cocoa is the tyranny of the previously defined flavor profile. I developed my love of making cocoa from those mistakes and refined my personal flavor by selecting knowledge from the happier accidents.
Once your cocoa is just starting to simmer, cut the heat. Stir it a couple more times, and pour it into your mug. You’ll find the honey and cocoa have increased the volume, so if you measured your cream/water mixture wrong, you’ll have a bit left over. Don’t let it sit too long or it might become a bit like pudding.
Next, the thick-walled mug takes charge. Our cocoa is hot. Really hot. Boiling hot. It has to be to get those proteins and sugars to meld, and now you are standing in your kitchen with the comforting, cozy smell of cocoa all around you, and you can’t drink it. The agony! But the mug gets right to work with its physics and good design. The thick ceramic absorbs heat from the liquid and lets you cuddle up with your mug on the couch as you resume your Korean drama marathon. Will Hye-ri discover who the real villain is before it’s too late for her love to exact his revenge? Probably, but who cares if it takes three more episodes? Chocolate fills your nose and warms your hands. You take a tentative sip, maybe burning the roof of your mouth. It stings, but it’s velvet and sweet darkness on your tongue.
