Earl Grey Hot Chocolate Mix

My thoughtful and generous friend, Allison, is always sending me tea-infused foodie finds from New York City. Over the holidays, Allison sent me a delicious Earl Grey hot chocolate mix from Whimsy & Spice Brooklyn Confectioners.  My first thought when I tried it was, “This is amazing.” My second thought was, “I could totally make this.” So I did.

I made the hot chocolate mix to trade at a Mile High Food Swappers event. This was my second-ever food swap. (Read about what I made from the goodies I scored at my first food swap event here.) Have you ever been to a food swap? It’s a pretty sweet deal: You bring something deliciously homemade to swap with others who’ve made something just as deliciously homemade.

The best part about a food swap is that most everyone who attends is into food, so they’re bringing some really great goods. I traded my hot chocolate mix for a home brewed IPA, cranberry curd, banana rum bread, peach-jalapeño jelly, lemon-sage mustard and a Kombucha scoby. (A scoby is a culture of bacteria and yeast that serves as a starter to make my Kombucha tea. Total tea geekery, I know.)

This hot chocolate mix recipe is a simple, dairy-free deal made with sugar, Dutch cocoa powder, ground bittersweet chocolate and ground Earl Grey tea. It’s best enjoyed in milk or a non-dairy milk alternative, like almond milk or coconut milk.

Happy cooking and sipping!

Adapted by Suzanne Klein, Tea Foodie from Martha Stewart’s Homemade Hot Chocolate recipe.

Makes about 8 cups of hot chocolate mix, enough to make about 40 cups of hot chocolate.

Ingredients:

3 ½ cups sugar

2 ½ cups Dutch cocoa powder

1 cup bittersweet chocolate chips, ground in a food processor

1 cup loose leaf Earl Grey tea leaves, finely ground in a spice grinder

Preparation:

1. To make the mix: Whisk all of the ingredients together in a large bowl until thoroughly combined. The mix will last for months if stored in well-sealed containers.

2. To make the hot chocolate: Whisk 2 tablespoons of the hot chocolate mix into 1 cup of hot milk (or non-dairy milk alternative).

Tips:

• You really want to use good quality chocolate here, both for the cocoa powder and the chocolate chips. My choices for chocolate are Savory Spice Shop’s Dutch Cocoa Powder and Ghirardelli’s 60% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate Chips.
• Make sure the Earl Grey tea is as finely ground as you can get it so it dissolves into the hot chocolate instead of leaving behind big leafy chunks. You can try grinding the tea in a blender or food processor, but I find that a spice grinder (a.k.a. coffee grinder that you use exclusively for spices) does the best job.