‘Tis the season for mugs full of steaming hot chocolate, and have I got a recipe for you! And I’m not even going to make you wade through an essay to get to it! It’s right below those pictures down there.
Yours truly just celebrated her 30th birthday, and my grown-up birthday bash featured a hot chocolate bar with all the fixings! Peppermint sticks, chocolate chips, sprinkles and more decorated the bar, but the piece de resistance was a fabulous hot chocolate lovingly prepared by the birthday girl and her slow cooker.
I snagged this delicious recipe from Pinterest, and it makes my journalism/PR degree ache that I can’t give credit where credit is due. The recipe was a screenshot of an image from Facebook, and the pin just led to a larger version of the image. If anyone know where this recipe originated, please shoot me an email or leave a comment. I’ve gotten a lot of praise for this hot chocolate, which also made an appearance at Stitchy’s class Christmas party, and I’d love to pass on the kudos.
What You Need:
- 2 Cups of Milk Chocolate Chips
- 6 Cups of Milk (Update: In an effort to serve more people, I added a whole half gallon thinking it would just cut the sweetness a touch. Not so much. Tasted almost the exact same but made more hot chocolate, so feel free to play around with the amount of milk)
- 1 Can of Sweetened Condensed Milk
- 1.5 Cups of Heavy Cream
- 1 Tsp of Vanilla Extract
What You Do:
Dump a bag (mine was just a touch larger than two cups, so I used it all) into your slow cooker, then pour all the liquid on top. Click the temp to ‘low’ and let it sit. I stirred every 30-45 minutes, although the pin says every 20-30. I tended to forget it was in there. It took about two hours for all of the chocolate to melt, but you can kick it up to ‘high’ if you want to go a little quicker.
And that’s it! Get ready to taste some of the most amazing hot chocolate to ever grace your lips!
We used two batches for the birthday party (and smaller cups) for about 50 adults and a dozen kids, and a batch and a half took care of a class of 23 third graders and parents. Of course, the kids filled most of their cups with whipped cream and marshmallows, so there wasn’t a lot of room for the liquid.
I added a bottle of Bailey’s to the bar (at my birthday, not the school party ;)), and it was the perfect compliment to the yumminess.
Our popcorn station was the perfect pairing with the hot chocolate! We had a giant bucket of popcorn with lots of mix-ins (ranch seasoning, kettle corn flavoring, candies, white chocolate chips, etc.). Toss it in a bag and shake, shake, shake!
What are your favorite hot chocolate toppings or mixers?
This is just what I needed on a snowy day here on the East Coast! Love your Bailey’s addition, too. Just stopping by from your SITS tribe. Looking forward to reading more.
It’ll definitely warm you up over there! Been seeing lots of East coast friends’ pictures on Facebook and a teensy bit jealous. I love snow!!