Mexican Orange Hot Chocolate

Favorite Chocolate Matches: Does your chocolate need a friend? This month’s posting will be after Valentines Day, so you may have a bit of extra chocolate around. What’s your favorite chocolate match? Be it traditional peanut butter or something more exotic like cayenne + chocolate. Show us your favorite healthy chocolate combo recipe.

Oh ho ho, this was somewhat of a hard one, but what a great theme!

Although I’m not the biggest fan of super-sweet things, I do in fact like chocolate. It’s pretty wonderful, and if I were to reveal to you that my candy supply comes exclusively from day-after-Halloween sales, you totally shouldn’t judge me, because that’s just called strategic shopping/frugal living. :]

• Peanut butter (I’ve been known to pound down Reeses pieces like nobody’s business!)
• Mint (Andes mints! Chocolate peppermint everything over the holidays! <3)
• Popcorn (Although not technically a flavor, it goes wonderfully with Cake Batter Popcorn <3 )
• Caramel (Snickers & Twix would have to have a throwdown for me to decide which one was my favorite candy bar)
• Chili (No, seriously, it’s really good! <3)
• Fruit (I recently had chocolate-covered pineapples at the peds clinic I was rotating at and they were glorious!)

Basically, you [probably] can’t go wrong with me and chocolate.

There’s also a special place in my heart for chocolate & orange. I had several squares of a Lindt Excellence Intense Orange Dark Chocolate Bar for the first time in grad school, and holy eff, it was wonderful. :O

Not so long ago in the distant past, my friend Ricardo sent me a thing of Ibarra chocolate:

I’ve been meaning to make Mexican hot chocolate with it for the longestttt time, so I decided to combine the two concepts, and bam! Mexican Orange Hot Chocolate was born! <3 (Thanks, Ricardo! :O!!)

Originally, I wanted to throw in a cinnamon stick to make it at least slightly more aesthetically pleasing…but I scoured three stores and they didn’t have any (…), so you gotta work with what you’ve got.

This super-quick and simple recipe takes only about 5 ingredients (6 if you want to be super fancy) makes two servings, and you can use chocolate almond milk if you want extra chocolate-y goodness!

I made it on a snow day during my pediatrics rotation (something came up, so my preceptor gave me the day off and I used it to study, work out, work on my CV, start scheduling my 4th-year rotations, and make a bunch of food). That warm chocolate infused with orange and a spicy cinnamon-y kick definitely made the freezing cold a little less terrible in my mind! :]

Mexican Orange Hot Chocolate

Print Recipe

Mexican Orange Hot Chocolate

Prep Time2 minutes mins

Cook Time5 minutes mins

Total Time7 minutes mins

Course: Drinks

Cuisine: Multicultural

Keyword: 5 ingredients + under, easy

Servings: 2 servings

Ingredients

• 2 cups almond milk
• 1 wedge of Ibarra Mexican Chocolate
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 tsp orange extract
• 2 orange slices optional
• 1 cinnamon stick optional; not pictured

Instructions

• Combine the milk, chocolate, and orange slices (if using) in a saucepan and warm over medium heat until chocolate has melted.
• Stir in orange extract and cayenne pepper.
• Add cinnamon sticks (if using) to mugs, and sprinkle with a little more cayenne pepper before serving!

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