Christmas Hot Chocolate

There’s a hot chocolate above all hot chocolates out there and you can make it yourself tonight. All you need is a crockpot, the ingredients, and 2 hours of anticipation. Trust me, the 2 hour wait is soo worth it.

I discovered this recipe last year on Pinterest and it made for our family Christmas party. It was a huge success. I doubled the recipe and used two crockpots, but I easily could have made more. I made the hot chocolate again this year and mixed it with Bailey’s Irish Cream. Now we’re talking!

Crockpot Hot Chocolate:

1.5 cups Whipping cream
1 14oz can of sweetened evaporated milk
6 cups milk
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Put all ingredients in a crockpot on low heat for two hours.

I set up a little hot chocolate station with cups of mini candy canes, chocolate chips, mini marshmallows, and M&Ms.

Be sure to stir the hot chocolate occassionally throughout the cook time. Since you’re melting chocolate chips, you’ll notice that it doesn’t ever blend perfectly smooth. From reading the comments from the original recipe, I guess chocolate chips have stabilizers in them to help hold their form when you bake them. If the little remnants of chocolate bother you, try chocolate chunks, apparently they don’t have stabilizers.

It’s the best hot chocolate ever. A creamy chocolately delight. A once a year treat. 🙂

Joy to the World – Christmas Cupcakes

The annual family Christmas party is hours away. It’s a tradition I always look forward to. A mixture of family and friends of all ages come to together to eat, drink, and celebrate. It’s a good time.

Last year the party was on a Saturday with plenty of time to prepare all the glorious food. This year the party is on a Friday night, so the food is being catered. But even if it meant losing sleep I had to make something! So I made cupcakes. Chocolate with vanilla buttercream frosting.

Pretty happy with the final results:

Mini Christmas Cupcakes

When I woke up this morning, there were 3 things I wanted to do. Cupcake making won out. Baking usually takes priority even if it shouldn’t.

Today called for triple chocolate cupcakes. I made them from a box, but replaced the oil with melted butter and mixed in a little whipping cream along with the water.

As usual, I was anxious to get to the decorating. In the spirit of the Christmas season, I decided to go for the classic red, green, and white combination. The only problem was that I didn’t have any green or red gels.

Since I did have red and green sprinkles, a decorating idea quickly emerged.

I started by making a circle of buttercream around the edge of the mini cupcake.

Then I gently rolled it in sprinkles.

Which looked like this.

Then I topped it with a little spiral of buttercream.

I had a lot of fun experimenting with different piping techniques.

Before I could even finish baking, my boyfriend came floating in the kitchen and snatched up a couple of the tinest cupcakes. Glad to have his seal of approval. 🙂