Drinking Chocolate Three Ways: The Parisian, the Mexican and the Spiked, with the Ratios That Make Each One Right
Our guide to hot chocolate against drinking chocolate makes the case that the cup built from real chocolate is a different and better thing than the one built from cocoa powder. This is the practical follow-up: three drinking chocolates from three traditions, with the ratios and the technique for each, because the Parisian cup, the Mexican cup and the spiked cup are three different drinks and only one of them wants a whisk. The hot chocolate bar is the party version; this is the two-cups-on-a-cold-night version.
One: the Parisian
The Paris salon de thé cup, the one served in a small pot with a jug of whipped cream on the side, is barely a drink. It is a 70 percent bar melted into milk and a little cream until it is thick enough to coat a spoon, sweetened almost not at all, and served in a small cup because more would be too much. The ratio is the whole recipe.
- 1 cup whole milk
- 1/4 cup heavy cream
- 4 ounces (115 g) dark chocolate, 65 to 72 percent, chopped, from a bar on the chocolate shelf
- 1 teaspoon sugar, optional
- A pinch of salt
- Warm the milk, cream, sugar and salt in a small saucepan over medium-low heat until steaming, not boiling.
- Take it off the heat, add the chocolate, wait a minute, and whisk gently until smooth and glossy.
- Return to low heat and stir for two or three minutes until it thickens slightly and coats the back of a spoon. Do not boil.
- Pour into two small cups, espresso-sized or slightly larger. Serve with whipped cream on the side, or a square of the same bar on the saucer.
Serves two, small. The bar decides everything; a single-origin with red fruit makes a bright cup, a deep nutty origin a rounder one, as the Dandelion guide describes across its six bars. A drop of vanilla or a strip of orange peel in the milk is the only variation Paris allows.
Two: the Mexican
The oldest cup in the world, as our chocolate history recounts, and the one that still tastes closest to what the Aztecs drank once Spain added sugar and cinnamon. Mexican drinking chocolate starts with a stone-ground tablet or disc of roasted cacao, sugar and cinnamon, grainy and rustic, from the drinking chocolate shelf, and its defining feature is foam, raised by spinning a wooden whisk, the molinillo, between the palms. Water is traditional; milk is common; the foam is not optional.
- 2 cups whole milk, or water, or half and half
- 3 ounces (85 g) Mexican-style stone-ground drinking chocolate, chopped or broken, or a 70 percent bar plus 1 tablespoon sugar and 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- A cinnamon stick
- A pinch of chile, ancho or a mild flake, optional and traditional
- A pinch of salt
- Heat the liquid with the cinnamon stick and salt until steaming. Remove the stick.
- Add the chocolate and chile and stir until melted. The texture will be slightly grainy; that is the stone grind and it is correct.
- Foam it. With a molinillo, hold the handle between your palms and spin it back and forth in the pot for a minute until a thick head forms. Without one, use a hand whisk, an immersion blender pulsed briefly, or a lidded jar shaken hard.
- Pour into cups from a height so the foam rides on top. Serve hot, with a cinnamon stick, and a pan dulce or a butter cookie for dunking.
Serves two, generous. A square of the Cuna de Piedra smoked chile bar broken into the pot in place of the chile pinch is the Tabasco cacao meeting its ancestor.
Three: the spiked
Either cup above becomes the winter drink with an ounce of spirit stirred in off the heat, and the spirit should match the cup. For the Parisian: dark rum, which loves chocolate; a brandy or cognac; a coffee liqueur; an orange liqueur for the bitter-orange note that Paris puts in its chocolate anyway. For the Mexican: mezcal, whose smoke and agave belong with cinnamon and chile, or a reposado tequila, or a dark rum. Bourbon works in both. Use about an ounce per cup, add it after the chocolate is off the heat so the alcohol does not cook off, and taste before adding more; drinking chocolate is rich enough that a heavy pour turns it into a dessert nobody finishes.
The zero-proof spiking is the bar's table of stir-ins: a spoon of goat's milk caramel, a bar spoon of dark maple, a pinch of flaky salt, two dashes of bitters if trace alcohol is acceptable, or a Lakrids ball dropped in to melt.
The rules for all three
Real chocolate, not cocoa powder; the difference is the cocoa butter, which gives the body. Never boil; milk scorches and chocolate seizes. Chop the chocolate small so it melts evenly. Small cups for the Parisian, large ones for the Mexican, and either for the spiked. At Denver's altitude, milk steams and scorches at a lower temperature, so keep the heat gentle, as our altitude guide warns for anything with milk in it. And make it in a small heavy pan and pour it straight away; drinking chocolate thickens as it stands and is best in the first five minutes.
The bars, the stone-ground discs, the caramel, maple, salt and bitters are at 263 Josephine Street in Cherry Creek, Denver, and ship nationwide from theambrosianpantry.com. The molinillo is worth owning and takes up no room. The spirit is your call, and so is the second cup.
