Hot Chocolate with Mint and Almonds

Hot chocolate is a beautiful drink. It tastes amazing, looks good and almost everyone is excited about it.

Before meeting Mr. T. I was a winter girl, I used to snowboard whenever possible and I loved mountains during the winter period (I still love it, just don’t visit that often anymore). Hot chocolate, hot tea with an electric twist (we call it like this in Poland when we add alcohol to tea) and hot wine was a must when I was in mountains. Things has changed. Since almost 8 years (since I am married too Mr T.) we are kind of avoiding winter. No idea why, it’s just happening. But I still have a warm heart for hot chocolate, so here comes a recipe.

I made something similar two years ago and since then it’s a regular in my fridge during the cold season. Chocolate makes us happy, but a hot chocolate make us warm and happy.

You will need:

• 1 cup cream
• ½ cup milk
• 5 sprigs fresh mint
• pinch of salt
• 1 & ½ cups chopped dark chocolate (like 70%)
• ½ cup grind almonds

Pour cream and milk to a small pot and bring to boil. Add springs of mint and put aside for about 30 minutes. Meantime grind the almonds, chop the chocolate and place together in a medium bowl.

Gently squeeze the mint from the cream mixture, so it will realise essential oils ant put it on a side. Add salt to the cream mixture and bring it again to boil over medium-low heat.

Pour the hot cream over the chocolate and almonds, let it melt for a minute and then start to mix it. This is how you get ganache. You can refrigerate it for about 2 weeks.

Whenever you feel like a cup of a hot chocolate, simply put 2 tbsp of ganache into the cup and pour in a hot milk. Tastes amazing with marshmallow.

Enjoy, Marta