A Cup of Warmth from Lake Champlain Chocolates

Is it cold where you live? If you live in the bulk of the United States it may well be cold. That means it is a great time to let you all know about hot chocolate and hot cocoa mixes we've been sent to test out on The Chocolate Cult. It has been a while since a hot beverage review appeared on this site because these products tend to last for a while and it has been a while since we were sent one to feature. But we often enjoy hot cocoa or hot chocolate (they are different products) from November until March of so depending on the weather. What is the difference? Hot Cocoa is a powder and it usually comes with dried milk added to the milk already. This is a good option of you have limited refrigerator space or want to make something really fast to drink. Hot Chocolate should be pieces of chocolate that melt as you heat them up with milk, you'll want to use milk because just water will not have proteins or fats that will let the chocolate melt and blend well. I received this canister of Organic Hot Chocolate from Lake Champlain as part of a giveaway they did through FoodieBlogRoll, a program that has disappeared now so there was no expectation that I'd ever review this product for you all but hey, the weather is right so I'm making this review live.

I made two servings at first to test out this hot chocolate. As you can see the reddish cocoa of the cocoa is an indication of the fact that is it processed using alkali. I'd call this Hot Cocoa not Hot Chocolate because it is a powder not tiny pieces of chocolate.

Lake Champlain Chocolates Organic Hot Chocolate Mix
Otherwise the only other ingredient in the mix is sugar so you need to use milk for this product. I only drink skim milk, have since I was a very young child. That may not be your favorite so let me know if you've tried this same product with other types of milk. I made a nice frothy two cups of skim milk following the microwave instructions on the canister.


When I added in the 2 tablespoons of the mix it immediately started to melt.


The result looked good but it was weak tasting in terms of chocolate. So I experimented. Adding 2 teaspoons more of the mix made it the level of chocolaty that I wanted. I find this to be true of most hot cocoa and hot chocolate -- you have to figure out what flavor is best for each mouth.


Basic, organic, simple, and easy to adjust to your individual tastes make this Lake Champlain Chocolates Organic Hot Chocolate mix a good product but I wouldn't call it "Chocolate" but "Cocoa" really even though you need to use milk. It is just too close to cocoa powder to be anything else.

Comments

Unknown said…
They have a variety of hot chocolates, some that are less cocoa forward. In addition, if you ever find yourself in Vermont, be sure to visit one of their stores. Amazing chocolates of course, and they serve up freshly made hot chcocolate made with various types of high cocoa butter chocolates, including single origin ones. And you get itnwith thr most amazing marshmallows that they make themselves. One of our favorite winter traditions!
This is the only hot chocolate mix we've ever got from the brand so it is good to know that they some variety, too. Thanks for reading and leaving a comment, Derek. I hope you continue to read and leave your experiences and opinions on our posts.
Emilie said…
I enjoyed this review so much that I searched for and read all your past reviews of hot cocoa. Yum! I feel warmer all ready!
I need to go through and add the "beverage" subject under all of those to make that easier for you all to do. Thank you for helping me realise that.