a hot chocolate holiday (a friday series)

This weeks hot chocolate recipe is another crock pot creation.  I got wind of some unusual ingredients and decided to create a crock pot recipe using them.

My kids don’t seem to really get what this series is supposed to be about.  It’s not about making the maple and butter recipe over and over again.  It’s about trying different hot chocolate recipes, searching for the best one.  Unusual ingredients are not necessarily a bad thing, but each time I find an interesting blend I want to try I get a lot of “ewww, that’s gonna be gross!”

This week is no different. Our strange ingredient for this recipe is:

It’s a banana.  Today we’re making Banana Mint Hot Chocolate.

Bananas in hot chocolate sounds really odd to me so I thought it was a must-try.

Kait isn’t happy about it, though.  She doesn’t like bananas unless they’re blended smooth into a strawberry flavored breakfast smoothie.  However, she doesn’t like Maple either but her favorite hot chocolate so far has been the maple and butter stuff.  Who knows, maybe she’ll like the banana hot chocolate, too.

But I doubt it.

She’s only tasting it by intense negotiations.  I’m threatening to blog embarrassing things about her if she doesn’t give it a try.

Kidding. 

I’d also like to add that this child ate a salt-n-vinegar cricket a couple weeks ago.  On her own.  With no coercion.  Not sure what her banana issue is.

Anyway, here is your ingredient list for this weeks hot chocolate recipe.  This makes enough for about 8 to 10 people.

• 1/2 gallon chocolate milk.  We bought the chocolate milk that isn’t really made of milk because it was only $1.59 a gallon.  It tastes just fine.  Actually, I really like it.
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 1 TBS vanilla
• 1 large banana sliced very thin
• mints or mint extract

What we did -

We mixed all this together in the crock pot, mixing it well with a wire whisk.  I left out the mint on purpose because Joe has a mild mint allergy.  Even the smell of mint makes him nauseated.  I’ll add a mint to each cup after we scoop it out.

So right now it’s cooking – it’ll take about 2 hours.  It’s going to be a warm 88 degrees today so it feels kinda silly to be cooking up our hot chocolate. 

I heart hot chocolate.
I heart living in Florida.
I heart 88 degrees.

I’ve just decided to make this work for me.

8 cups of hot chocolate later…  (yes, I shared them)

This hot chocolate was thick and dark.  The banana in it has mostly melted but there were small pieces that had a marshmallow-ish consistency.  We added the typical toppings, plus a few pieces of mint for everybody but Joe.

Kait gave it a negative elevendie-seventeen.  She said it was disgusting. 

Joe liked it much better than last weeks, but it wasn’t his favorite.  Gabe didn’t like the pieces of banana in it, but really liked the flavor.  Matthew, Ben, and Sam loved it just because it had the word chocolate in it and they said it was their favorite.

Ryan really liked it, too, but I wasn’t surprised.  He likes chunks of fruit in sweet stuff so this was right up his ally.  That and it had a darker chocolate flavor, which he is also a fan of.

I thought the banana flavor was a nice twist, though I think I’d strain the banana pieces out of it if we ever made it again.  The flavor was good and the hot chocolate was really thick and dark, which I liked.

I just wasn’t a fan of the pieces of fruit.

Here is this weeks video.  I had to go wrangle up the boys who had run back outside after the fact to get their opinion, so they’re a little dirty.

In the video I gave Sam a couple of marshmallows.  He hugged them, then did his little excited fist clench thingy he hasn’t done in a while. 

It was cute.

I still like the maple and butter hot chocolate recipe the best.  Not looking like we’ll be able to top that one – but I’m going to try again next week!

Tagged with: Food n Drink • hot chocolate holiday

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