Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Hot Cocoa

Inspired by the hot cocoa we enjoyed at our niece's house a few nights ago and a show I saw yesterday, we had hot cocoa tonight.

The show was Barefoot Contessa - if you know why on earth the show is called that, please do share, but I digress - here is the recipe she used:

Holiday Hot Chocolate
Copyright 2005 Ina Garten, All Rights Reserved
See this recipe on air Monday Dec. 24 at 12:00 PM ET/PT.
Show: Barefoot Contessa
Episode: Holiday Surprise
4 cups whole milk
4 cups half-and-half
1 pound white chocolate, chopped
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
Seeds scraped from 2 vanilla beans
1/4 to 1/3 cup orange flavored liqueur (recommended: Grand Marnier)

In a saucepan on medium heat, heat the milk and half-and-half to just below the simmering point. Remove the pan from the heat and add the white chocolate. When the chocolate is melted, add the vanilla, vanilla bean seeds, and 1/4 to 1/3 cup orange liqueur, according to taste, and whisk vigorously. Reheat very gently and serve.



I, on the other hand, didn't have this handy dandy recipe from the web in front of me and improvised :) Here's what I did:

2 cups half n half
2 cups heavy whipping cream
1 cup semisweet morsels
1 tsp. vanilla

Heat half n half and whipping cream - add semisweet morsels and stir 'til melted (or almost all melted as I didn't have tons of time to get this done :) ) Add vanilla and stir. Serve!

Enjoy - it was RATHER chocolately and very thick and creamy compared to what the store-bought mixes are like, but YUMMMMY :) Next time, methinks I'll thin it down a bit - wowee!

Oh yes, and serve with some of those fantastic little cookies you can buy that are little round circles w/cute pictures on top :) We had snowmen cookies tonight - so easy and delicious and perfect for a busy mama!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why is she called "The Barefoot Contessa"? Can't help you out on that one, but when and if you ever do find out, let me know. ;-)

Btw, your cocoa sounds really good. We haven't had any just yet, but I've got some ready and waiting. Maybe we'll drink a cup next week. Nothing fancy - just good, WARM, and chocolatey!

CAB said...

I GUESS I could've searched for this BEFORE I posted :) Ah well - for those who care....

What does Barefoot Contessa mean?

Barefoot Contessa is the name of a classic movie from the 1950's with Humphrey Bogart and Ava Gardner. When I bought the store in 1978, it was called Barefoot Contessa. The former owner is Italian and her family called her the Barefoot Contessa when she was young. It's about being elegant and earthy which is what we're about.

Lok said...

Yum-MO!!!! Ohhhh, yummy, yummy, yummy. I've got a hankerin' for some of the real stuff now, thank you very much! :-)