Sunday, December 2, 2007

boozy hot cocoa, take one: amaretto

2oz bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
1 1/2oz amaretto (I used Luxardo, which I lurrrve)

Chop the chocolate into very fine pieces, no bigger than 1/4" in size, and put into a small bowl. Bring the milk and cream to a boil, and pour over the chocolate. Tap the bowl on the counter to help the cream get into the chocolate, and let sit for 30 seconds or so. Mix slowly to blend the chocolate and cream together. Put the amaretto into your large mug, then pour the chocolate mixture over it. Stir to mix the liquids, then enjoy.

Earlier today I made ganache for the first time, following the instructions from the fabulous Secrets of Baking. Then later today, we went over to Marty's specifically to get Luxardo's Amaretto as we'd discovered how wonderfully sublime and better than DiSaronno earlier this week (thanks, Kit). I know amaretto with chocolate is sort of basic and almost boring, but damn: it is tasty, gauche or no.

I need to play around with making ganache-type things more, since the blending didn't work out so well (some chocolate chunks towards the bottom of the mug, nothing particularly fatal). I may have to change it to a two-stage process, blend the cream and chocolate and then add in the milk. I want to try this with Fernet now!

2 comments:

Jeffrey Pinyan said...

I've been adding Amaretto to my hot cocoa since my college days. It's hard to drink it any other way now.

CocktailVirgin said...

Green Chartreuse is a standard flavor pairing. I was quite surprised when I had it with Crème Yvette at an event -- I was not expecting it to be that tasty.