Homemade Hot Chocolate, Ice-cream float with Caramel Sauce

Oh man. Oh man oh man oh man. This is the greatest creation.
A couple nights ago, I came home and wanted something sweet and chocolatey. But we have no more chocolate chips in the apartment. My intention for food has been to cook with what I have and make it last for a whole month. So no chocolate chips means no baked goods with chocolate chips in them. Fine. I have Cocoa powder.

All the things I have made so far in my life and in this blog have been based on someone else's tested recipe. I wanted to be adventurous that night and how hard could it be to make Hot Chocolate from scratch?
I made Crock Pot Chocolate cake last Sunday and a portion of the recipe was a watery chocolate mixture to pour over the batter. But this liquid chocolate mixture tasted like Willie Wonka's waterfall. I remembered it had cocoa, sugar, and brown sugar. Cool. measurements?.... I'll figure it out

I started with 1/4 of a cup of each then boiled some water and poured it over the ingredients.... it made 4 big cups. just me in the house.. disaster. The first cup tasted amazing. Lizzie (roommate) thankful came to the kitchen and got a cup. The last cup of the batch I couldn't even drink because it was.. gritty.. and chunky. I left it on the table that night and in the morning it had solidified! whoops.

This recipe needs perfection. I invited my best friend and boyfriend over last night and we were going to make milkshakes and hot chocolate.

What actually happened was this:

Hot Chocolate-icecream float with Caramel Sauce
(this recipe makes 1 cup)


STEP ONE

HOT COCOA
1 Tbsp Cocoa
1 Tbsp Sugar
1 Tbsp Brown Sugar
1 Tbsp water

1 1/2 cup milk

Put cocoa, sugar, and brown sugar in mug. Stir in the 1 Tbsp water until it forms a dark chocolately mixture with a slight sheen (this is important so it doesn't form lumps like my first batch).

Heat milk on stove or in microwave, be sure not to scald it.
Stove: 5-8 minutes on medium high heat
Microwave: 1 minute 25 seconds on high

Pour milk over chocolate and stir until completely dissolved.

ICECREAM TOPPING


Since we were planning on making milkshakes with my roommates amazing malt machine, we got everything ready without considering the fact that we would end up with two drinks.. So how can we combine it? Make a chocolate milkshake? ...nah.. Hot chocolate float! yes!

So we had French Vanilla Ice-cream and milk in the malt machine (the things they have at fast food places to mix things in your shake and to make it super creamy) and all we did was make super creamy ice-cream. It was perfect to go on top of our hot chocolate. The contrast of hot and cold was perfect. Makes your mouth water.

If you don't have a malt machine.. just stir up the ice-cream with some milk to make it super creamy so you can whip it up on top. Easy..

CARAMEL SAUCE


This was a challenge. I've never made caramel before. And I suggest making this at the beginning. Before you heat your milk and stir your ice-cream. That's two elements you don't want to lose their temperature.

Ingredients:
IMPORTANT- have them next to the stove and ready. to. go. Candy making is no joke.

1 Cup sugar
6 Tbsp butter
1/2 cup Heavy Cream (I didn't have this because I can't go to the store until February, so I used ice-cream)

Put the sugar in a heavy sauce pan on Medium High heat.

This is a saucepan

Not this

I make this mistake too many times to count....


ANYWAY

Sugar is in the saucepan on the stove. You are whisking constantly because you have no idea what you are doing and you don't want to burn the sugar. It gets very hot very quick, do not touch it. it will not boil, that doesn't mean it's not scalding hot. You may already know this, but I didn't and it looks delicious in the pan. Thank goodness Andi was there to stop me.

When the sugar melts and takes on a light amber color, stop whisking and swirl it around a bit.
Add the butter and continue to whisk again.
As soon as the butter has melted, take it off the heat COUNT TO THREE and slowly add the heavy cream/ice-cream.
Keep off heat. whisk and it will start to thicken. It will thicken more and more as it cools.

YOU STILL SHOULDN'T TOUCH IT. it will look so yummy at this point, it's hard to resist... I surprised I still have fingerprints.

Let it cool for about 10-15 minutes then pour into a Mason Jar (or empty jelly jar. I love that we never throw those away)

NOW TO PUT IT ALL TOGETHER!!

Hot Cocoa- Hot and ready
Ice-cream- Cold and ready
Caramel- yes


I love life...
and chocolate.
and my friends.