Wednesday 2 February 2011

The Seven Days of Hot Chocolate: Lemon Hot Chocolate

DSC_0781 My charming British husband adores Thornton's chocolates (which you can only get in the UK), particularly  the Sicilian Lemon ones. I have to agree, they are pretty awesome- yet you seldom see lemon and chocolate together in anything but a box of chocolates. Well, no more!

Ingredients:

3 cups of milk (26 fl. ounces)
60 g dark chocolate
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 cup sugar
1 tbsp grated lemon zest


Directions: melt the dark chocolate into a saucepan of milk on medium-low heat. Stir in sugar and vanilla extract. Stir in the lemon zest and let simmer very gently for a few minutes, stirring constantly. Then pour into cups and enjoy!


Notes:
I recommend organic lemons if you are grating zest for anything. Otherwise you're mostly adding a lot of 'food grade' wax to your zest as well. But hey, if organic lemons aren't handy where you are, you certainly will be just fine with normal lemons. Also, whoever is having the  mug that was poured last may find a fair bit of zest in the bottom of their mug.


Substitutions:
  • use vanilla flavoured soy milk instead of regular milk; omit additional vanilla, reduce the added sugar to about 1/4 cup
  • use 1/3 cup cocoa powder instead of dark chocolate. Not as smooth, but still good!
  • use 1/3 cup of agave nectar if you are avoiding refined sugar

18 comments:

Emilie said...

Looks very good! And the picture is gorgeous!

Diane said...

I never would have thought... I can't wait to try this one!

Jacey said...

I'm intrigued by this one. Sounds delicious!

Kasia said...

Sounds tempting!
And I agree: Thornton's chocolates are delicious indeed!

Sungopolis said...

This certainly appeals to the Anglophile in me. Sweet + Tart = Delicious.

Ursa said...

"Thornton's chocolates"! That puts me in mind of "North & South", with the dark, handsome "Mr Thornton", master of the mill....

Knit 1 LA said...

I have to stop reading these when my daughters are around. There will be no rest in our house until I make these delicious looking recipes!

erica-knits said...

Lemon! You know I cannot resist! So glad to have a momentary break from writing to check out the seven days of hot chocolate! I'm impressed, Julie, so impressed.(and it's only day two!)

polkaknits said...

Sounds great! I'm making the one with peanut first. I finally bought my favourite peanut butter! Thanks for recipes!
Cheers!

Gigi said...

Well crikey! I never thought about lemon and chocolate together, but it sounds really good. Must try it!
Blessings,
GG

Julia said...

I'm on the edge of my seat waiting to see if you do an orange hot chocolate and/or a cherry hot chocolate. Also wondering if lemon has the same effect that orange has with chocolate...you've really tempted me with this one!

mikka said...

lemon and chocolate sounds amazing! i love lemon, but have never thought to combine it with chocolate - what an awesome idea!

Denise said...

I love the sound of this one, I haven't had Thornton's chocolates in years, they were my fav too when I lived there :)

Teresa said...

I love the sounds of this hot chocolate. I must say I'm intrigued. Have to try tonight!

Maryse said...

I love lemon! I've never mixed it with chocolate though... I'll have to try that one out! Thanks!

Emily Repnyek said...

My hubby and I really liked the flavor. I know that the zest has the most flavor, but the remains of the zest is what my hubby liked the least. So maybe use organic lemon juice instead. Also, we are the ones who don't like dark chocolate, so sub bittersweet or milk chocolate instead. Otherwise, it was lovely.

Lindsay said...

This sounds delicious, I can't wait to try it out!

After reading this post the other day I started craving some of those lemony chocolates! I saw some thorntons sicilian lemon meringue biscuits in the supermarket and had to buy them. They were not as tasty as I thought they would be, which is a shame!

Anonymous said...

I made this the other night. It wasn't as much flavour as the orangy one. Maybe my lemon wasn't very flavoursome.

This time I had another brownie with it but I didn't fill my cup all the way to the top because the night before I felt weird after all that chocolate ;)

So now two days of no chcolate and we see what happens on the week-end ... :)