4 Levels of Hot Chocolate: Amateur to Food Scientist | Epicurious

hi i'm steven and i'm a level one chef hi i'm daniel and i'm a level two chef hi i'm saul i've been a professional chef for the past 20 years my hot chocolate is inspired by my sister's recipe that she would make at christmas so sis i'm gonna do my best don't make me hear it at christmas today i'm making a hot chocolate that is thick rich and it's got some booze in it because why not today i'm making a mexican hot chocolate aka champurado i'm gonna make my own almond milk and i'm going to top it up with some churros do i need to tell you it's going to be delicious all right let's get started with the chocolate we're gonna start with the hot cocoa powder this is the most important part of the entire recipe without this you're just drinking hot milk now i think using real chocolate is the way to go and when you couple it with some cocoa powder the whole thing is just gonna be next level and today i've got some high quality semi-sweet dark chocolate the mexican chocolate that i'm using today is ibarra straight from guadalajara jalisco the difference between this chocolate and the other chocolates this one has like a granary sugar it has a cinnamon in it and this is how you break it apart now this is what i'm talking about you see that crystallation is that even a work crystallation i'm going to use half of the chocolate bar in the actual mixture and the other half i'm going to cut up as well for the topping next my spice mixture since it's hot cocoa the majority of the mix is going to be cocoa powder powder the reason i use hot cocoa powder is just because it's simple maybe 10 p.m you just throw it together and by 1001 you're the happiest man in the world a pinch of salt and we're using the whole thing of azuka sugar for my spanish viewers i'm learning spanish cinnamon is my go-to in all things so i'm going to do a pretty hefty dash of cinnamon here next is nutmeg i don't know what it adds but you can tell when it's gone it's like a best friend time for some cloves it's like a small little pinch here allspice it's like a bouquet in your nose hairs and that's it my cocoa mix is done and there you have it my chocolate for my mexican hot chocolate ain't gonna lie to you people this smell like christmas it's time for some milk we're gonna be using whole milk funny story i'm actually lactose intolerant but now for a little treat i treat myself to the whole milk i deal with the consequences later today i'm using a mixture of whole milk and heavy cream i've used just milk before and that's fine but i find that if you add a little bit of heavy cream it really does bring a more velvety mouth feel and richness to the hot chocolate today we're making almond milk oh he's making his own almond milk it's going to add the nutty flavor to the hot chocolate and also it's going to make it not so dense i'm going to need 4 cups of water now you're going to dump the almonds and we're going to let it sit for 12 hours that's right 12 hours i'm using whole milk just because it's a little bit fattier while this is warming up i've got heavy cream i'm not going to use all of it i don't think i'm probably going gonna go with half a cup it's been 12 hours so we're just going to strain it right here the almonds they kind of got a little bit more fluffy i want a rich hot chocolate especially if i'm mixing alcohol in it which is going to cut through the fat anyway i want something that's a little more bold to take away from the fact that i will inevitably probably be getting getting drunk now it's time to blend our almonds i'm going to use hot water no boiling water hot water hot like this this kind of hat the reason why we use hot water is because the water is gonna make the almonds more creamier and i'm gonna add a little salt and agave agave is gonna give that the sweetness that we're looking for there we go that's the color that we're looking for so now we're going to strain the almond milk it smells like almond heaven and there you have it homemade almond milk let's start putting things together so into the saucepan i'm going to add my spice mixture i'm making a traditional a mexican hot chocolate and we're using a traditional pot a traditional whisk and a traditional mexican the molinio it's it's an aztec whisk the reason why it has those little rings because it's going to help prevent the chocolate to stick to the bottom so basically i'm going to put it right here and kind of do this with the chocolate my secret ingredient arrowroot powder it thickens things up so i want to do this little by little sort of scooping a bit of the hot chocolate into this first this is what when you add the cauliflower to the liquid and the reason why i do it on the side because i want it to be nice and smooth to start breaking up the chunks and starting the thickening process before re-adding this into the saucepan so once i see that all the arrowroot powder is absorbed this goes back into the saucepan and that's just going to help thicken it up a little bit more without adding any extra crazy flavor we're going to add this to the pot and we're going to add cinnamon and then we grab the vanilla extract sometimes you could be like oh i feel like this is missing something it's vanilla extract and of course the chocolate i'm literally just gonna add the entirety of what i chopped up before and start whisking away and keep doing this until the hot chocolate is kind of almost boiling i don't know why my sister does this yeah i'm getting a muscle cramp consistency is exactly what i'm looking for like a thick hot chocolate and it smells amazing it smells like mexican christmas i think this is looking pretty good so this looks great but you know what's gonna make it a little better booze so first things first to the shaker i'm gonna add some ice i've got vodka got some kahlua bailey's irish cream in here i'm going to add my hot chocolate okay all that's left to do is shake it up and it's ready to be poured and now it's churro time all right so basically making churros it sounds complicated but it's not let's talk topics baby so i got a lot of toppings all empty calories by the way we got the caramel festive sprinkles we got some chocolate chips we got some ready whip and then we got a chocolate wafer straw that we're gonna sneak in my hot chocolate is sort of s'mores inspired i'm opting for graham crackers and marshmallows as my garnish my embellishment on top of some homemade whipped cream so i'm gonna make my whipped cream by hand daniel's always trying to show me up so let's make some churros cold water we have butter we're gonna add a little bit of salt and sugar and we're just gonna stir until everything combines together we're going to dump the flour at once we don't want to boil the water if the water is boiling we want to have big crumbles of flour so you want to mix it until it's smooth all right let's make some whipped cream first thing cold bowl you don't think it matters but it really does it helps with keeping everything together and if you use a warm bowl i find that it's harder to get those stiff peaks to the cold bowl i'm going to add some heavy cream and powdered sugar i am already tired i do not whip my own whipped cream it gives me muscle spasms now the dough it's very important that we have to make sure we lower the temperature we don't want scrambled eggs this is not breakfast just mix it make sure you get some air there so it cools a little bit is making your own whipped cream by hand necessary like without an electric mixer no but the pride you feel when it's done you can't you can't beat that you know i'm gonna stop here i don't think it needs to be any thicker and now i'm gonna add the eggs one by one all right let's add some vanilla aldo looks good i think it's perfect consistency it's holding on to the whisk the homemade whipped cream is done all right maturo dough is ready now it's time to fry some churros to fry churros i'm gonna use canola oil it should be a 375 370 to have a nice golden crispy churros we want to make sure we keep our scissors on water because that's how we're going to cut our churros otherwise they will stick so let's make one now you stop you cut it okay see and that's how you do an s like saul now i'm gonna do another one oh that looks delicious and i will say you cook it for like maybe two to three minutes you can't have a s'mores inspired cocktail without toasted marshmallows so i'm a vegetarian so no marshmallows for me it's a lifestyle people i'm looking for nice gold consistency how do you know the churros are done when you don't see that many bubbles okay i don't see a lot of bubbles anymore put it right here we're going to mix some sugar and cinnamon for a churros as soon as they come out of the fryer you're going to toss that in here so the sugar will stick to the churro for now all i'm doing is breaking up the graham crackers i don't really need much of the powder my graham cracker garnish it's gonna crush that and then this one you get to put in your pocket and take home because you've earned it i melt some chocolate and i took some of the almonds from my almond milk start with s i just want to eat it oh my gosh and there we go look how pretty that looks as i'm doing this i'm like sally biting celebrating oh [Music] delicious amazing so first i'm going to skewer a couple marshmallows and toast them to ideally the perfect golden brownness but i will say admittedly i do like a little bit of a burnt marshmallow toasted little beauties time to put it all together let's pour ourselves some hot chocolate be careful ooh so good and for whipped cream oh no messing this up royally let's hide the message beneath that looks pretty cute we're gonna put a little bit of this caramel caramel caramel one of those two i'm scared to put these chocolate nibs trust the process next i'm going to throw my little torched marshmallows right front and center and the churro and then i'm going to sneak a chocolate wafer in the side architecture after that cram crackers because it's s'mores take a nice little cinnamon but just to make it look pretty some sprinkles a little bit of the dark chocolate because you know chocolate on chocolate just better and then a little bit of the graham cracker powder and voila you have it this is the most over the top hot chocolate ever and this is my hot chocolate looks very festive i can't wait to try it and this is my hot chocolate this looks damn good i'm stoked to slug this and this is my mexican hot chocolate aka champurrado cheers [Music] delicious oh yeah it's good a hint of nutmeg steven you've done it again tastes delicious i think my sister would be proud of me it's delicious the best part about this is that you're not just getting chocolate flavor you could taste the cinnamon and then all the little fixings like the dark chocolate topping it's a nice ode to s'mores you can taste that there's booze in there but it's not like there's booze in here you know what i'm saying like it's not gonna rock you but it'll set you up for a nice holiday for sure it's really good that's it no more milk for me almond milk from now on i'm at home right now in mexico i'm here but i'm not here and this churro just makes this better hot chocolate is a wonderful treat with lots of options for making it let's see how each of our three chefs made theirs steven made his hot chocolate with whole milk whole milk is about 3.5 percent milk fat which makes it nice and opaque and slightly creamy daniel used a combination of whole milk and heavy cream heavy cream is approximately 38 milk fat and cold heavy because it's very high in milk fat content heavy cream has an extravagant richness without feeling greasy or oily this is due to milk fat globules which are too small to detect in our mouth but tend to coalesce making cream very smooth and viscous saul made his own almond milk this is a plant forward milk made from the water extraction of soaked ground almonds steven used cocoa powder for his hot chocolate cocoa powder is made from cacao beans specifically the cocoa nibs which are roasted cacao beans with the outer fibrous hull removed removing the cocoa butter from the nibs leaves a solid mass which is then pulverized into powder daniel used a combination of cocoa powder and melted dark chocolate which has a range of compositions but it's essentially cocoa solids cocoa butter and some sugar when you see a percentage on chocolate it's telling you the amount of cocoa solids and cocoa butter in the product by weight the remaining percentage is mostly sugar perhaps some added lecithin and vanilla and some added milk or milk powder salt used ibarra chocolate bars this is special mexican chocolate made from roasted cocoa nibs sugar and cinnamon it's slightly gritty from sugar granules which also act as a type of scaffolding to stabilize the chocolate crystals the resulting chocolate melts like a dream which is why it's traditionally used for hot chocolate sauel mixed his hot chocolate with a special traditional tool called a molinio which is small wooden spindle of sorts used to whisk the chocolate with the milk making it slightly foamy and frothy for a topping steven added nutmeg an assertive spice which gets much of its flavor from the compound maristacin this is a psychoactive compound that in high doses can block the action of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine which causes some nerves in the digestive tract to stop working daniel added alcohol when alcohol is shaken over ice it introduces water and air making it slightly less potent allowing some flavor molecules to oxidize and impart interesting flavors saul topped his hot chocolate with delicious churros he cooked the water butter and sugar together in a saucepan and then added all of the flour at once and cooked it partially gelatinizing the flour starch eggs were incorporated when the flour mass cooled this added soluble globular albumin proteins for structure and also enough water to form steam which leavened the churros and made them slightly hollow light and airy inside the frying quickly dehydrated the outside giving the churros a crispy outer texture hot chocolate is a truly sumptuous beverage and not just during the cold winter months next time you're making this sweet dark and decadent beverage we hope you'll take some tips from our three talented chefs

Channel: Epicurious

Views: 1,591,389

Keywords: 4 levels, best hot chocolate, best hot chocolate recipe, christmas hot chocolate, easy hot chocolate, epicurious, expert hot chocolate, homemade hot chocolate, homemade hot chocolate recipe, homemade hot cocoa recipe, hot chocolate, hot chocolate mix recipe, hot chocolate recipe, hot cocoa, hot cocoa recipe, hot to make hot chocolate, how to make hot chocolate, how to make hot cocoa, make hot chocolate, make hot cocoa, mexican hot chocolate, winter hot chocolate

Id: EEMLQRWWZKo

Length: 14min 55sec (895 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 22 2021