Hi Steemit,

Are you like me and looking for last minute gifts for family and friends you didn’t have to see on Christmas Day?

If so, you have come to the right place!

Everybody loves food. Even the most principled healthy eaters can make exceptions during the holidays. And the hot chocolate blocks aren’t hurt-your-teeth-so-much-you-can’t-even-finish-a-bite sweet either.

The principle behind these hot chocolate blocks is basically a fudge with less sweetness and more baker’s chocolate. They can be eaten as a treat, or skewered on a lollipop stick and stirred into hot steamy milk. I’ll give the basic recipe below and include some ideas for letting your incredibly thoughtful homemade gift stick out even more.

Hot Chocolate Blocks

(Makes 25 servings)

Ingredients

• 3 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1 block unsweetened Baker’s chocolate, chopped coarsely
• 1 can sweetened condensed milk
• 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
• Mix-ins, such as flavored extracts, candies, nuts, marshmallows, etc

Instructions

1. Line an 8x8 pan with parchment paper. Spray with non-stick spray.
2. Combine chocolate chips, baker’s chocolate, and mix-ins into a bowl. Toss bowl to evenly distribute them.
3. Pour 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream and sweetened condensed milk into a pot and turn to medium/low heat. Stir constantly. Do not allow the mixture to boil or scorch.
4. Pour the heated sweetened condensed milk and heavy whipping cream into the bowl with the dry ingredients and stir until the chocolate is melted. There should be no lumps (excluding mix-ins).
5. Pour the chocolate mixture into the pan and let sit for 3 hours in the fridge or at room temperature overnight.
6. Cut into blocks and serve! One block is appropriate for 12 ounces of hot milk. Do not try to combine with water.

Mix-in ideas:

Hot Chocolate Style / Fudge style

• Dark hot chocolate: replace 1.5 cups chocolate chips with dark chocolate chips.
• White Hot chocolate: replace chocolate chips and unsweetened bakers chocolate with white baking chips (very very sweet).
• Peanut butter chocolate hot chocolate: replace unsweetened baker’s chocolate with 1/2 cup peanut butter / Stud fudge with Reese’s pieces.
• Orange hot chocolate: Add 3/4 teaspoon orange extract. Dust with orange zest.
• Orange dark hot chocolate: replace 1.5 cups chocolate chips with dark chocolate chips. Add 3/4 teaspoon orange extract. Dust lightly with orange zest.
• Peppermint hot chocolate: Add 1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract. / Roll fudge blocks in crushed candy canes.

Feel free to mix and match aspects of any of the recipes! Nuts can be added to any of them (especially hazelnuts and pecans!) but be aware the nuts floating in your hot chocolate isn’t a very nice treat.
Any extract can be added to the fudge mix. I would keep it between 1/2 and 3/4 teaspoons extract per batch depending on how strong you want the flavor to be.
The blocks are also really nice drizzled with melted white chocolate or caramel and rolled in crushed nuts, candies, sea salt, etc.

The best part of this recipe is that there are so many flavor combinations, and no matter what, it comes out amazing!

Hope everyone is having a lovely week, regardless of whether you celebrate or not.

Love always,
T