Cold brew figured this out years ago. Hot chocolate is finally catching up. Here is how to make a good iced hot chocolate at home, and how we make ours.
Every summer I get the same question once it warms up: what do you drink when you still want chocolate but it is eighty degrees out? For a long time the only answer was a powdered mix poured over ice, which is fine, but it tastes like exactly what it is.
So here is the short version. To make a good iced hot chocolate at home, melt real chocolate gently, stir it into warm (not boiling) milk until smooth, then chill it and pour it over ice. The melted chocolate is what separates a real iced hot chocolate from a watery one. Powder dissolves. Chocolate emulsifies, which is why the drink comes out silky instead of thin.
That is the whole idea. The details are where it gets good.
Why melt real chocolate instead of using powder?
Powdered mixes are built around cocoa and sugar, with the cocoa butter mostly removed. Cocoa butter is the part that carries flavor and gives chocolate its body, so when you take it out, you get sweetness without much depth. When you melt a real bar into the milk, you are putting that cocoa butter back where it belongs. The drink ends up rounder, less sweet, and it actually tastes like the chocolate you started with.
Use a good bittersweet bar for this. Our 65% bittersweet bars melt cleanly and are not overly sweet, which matters once you add cold milk and ice, both of which mute flavor.
How do you make it, step by step?
For one tall glass:
- Chop about two ounces of bittersweet chocolate so it melts evenly.
- Warm a splash of milk, take it off the heat, and stir the chocolate in until it is completely smooth. Warm, not boiling. Boiling water and scalding milk flatten the delicate cacao notes, so you want it just hot enough to melt.
- Whisk in the rest of your cold milk (whole milk makes it creamier).
- Chill it for a few minutes, then pour over a glass of ice.
If you like it thicker and more like a frozen treat, skip the chilling step and blend the warm chocolate-milk with a cup of ice instead. Same drink, colder and a little more like dessert.
What about sweetness and toppings?
Taste before you add anything. A good bittersweet chocolate usually brings enough sweetness on its own once there is milk in the glass. If you want more, a little honey or cane sugar dissolved into the warm step works better than sprinkling it on cold. A few shavings of the same bar on top is all the garnish it needs.
The no-effort version
I will be honest: this is a few minutes of work, and some days you just want it ready. That is exactly why we are releasing our own Iced Hot Chocolate this month. Same thinking as the recipe above, made with real chocolate and built to be poured straight over ice, without the melting and whisking. It is our headline release for June, so keep an eye on the shop. (When it goes live, this is the one to grab.)
If you are gifting rather than making, our gift portal at gifts.charleschocolates.com lets you send a gift or a gift card and let the other person choose. And for something richer and more indulgent than a summer drink, our sister brand John Kelly Chocolates makes a truffle fudge that is hard to put down.
Try the homemade version once this week. Once you have had an iced hot chocolate made with real melted chocolate, the powder is hard to go back to.
Enjoy,
Chuck Siegel
Founder, Charles Chocolates
Chuck has been making chocolate in San Francisco since 1987. Self-taught, he founded his first chocolate company, Attivo Confections, sold it in 1995, and started Charles Chocolates in 2004 on one uncommon idea: chocolate should be treated like fresh food.
Everything is made in small batches with all-natural ingredients (real cream, real butter, real fruit) and no shortcuts. His work has earned a Good Food Award, Sunset Magazine's Best of the West, and recognition from San Francisco Magazine, and has been covered by KQED and the San Francisco food press.
