The Best Homemade Hot Chocolate Mix

Christmas is two weeks away and the house is in that state of controlled anticipation where every conversation leads back to presents and every trip to the store requires navigating a minefield of wish-list items the kids pretend not to notice. Dave and I are doing Christmas on a budget, the way we do everything on a budget, which means careful planning, strategic sales, and the understanding that the best gifts are not the most expensive ones but the ones that say I see you.

Amber wants books. Tyler wants tools. Justin wants a football, the real kind, Wilson leather, not the foam kind from the dollar store. Josie wants a hamster, which is not happening, but she does not know that yet. She will get a stuffed hamster and a book about hamsters and the firm parental statement that Mr. Whiskers at school is all the hamster any family needs, and she will be disappointed for approximately ten minutes before moving on to the next thing, because Josie does not stay disappointed. Josie is the most resilient person in this family and she is seven.

I made my Christmas fudge this week, the recipe Gayle has been making since the 1970s. Sugar, evaporated milk, butter, chocolate chips, marshmallow cream, vanilla, and walnuts. You cook the sugar and milk to soft ball stage, which requires a candy thermometer and patience and the understanding that if you stop stirring the fudge will crystallize and you will have expensive gravel instead of candy. Gayle taught me this recipe standing at her stove when I was ten, and she made me stir for twenty minutes without stopping, and I complained, and she said, the fudge does not care about your complaints, Brenda, stir. I have never stopped stirring.

I also started a batch of chex mix, the homemade kind: Chex cereal, pretzels, mixed nuts, butter, Worcestershire sauce, garlic powder, onion powder, seasoned salt. Mixed and baked in a low oven for an hour, stirring every fifteen minutes. It lives in a tin on the counter and everyone eats handfuls all day, and by Christmas Eve it will be gone, and I will make another batch, because Chex mix is the soundtrack of Christmas in this house. You hear the crunch. You know it is December.

All of that stirring—the fudge, the Chex mix, the twenty minutes at Gayle’s stove that taught me patience is just love with a wooden spoon—put me in the mood for something warm and simple that required nothing but measuring and mixing. Hot chocolate felt right: no candy thermometer, no watching the clock, just good ingredients combined in a tin and ready whenever someone comes in cold from outside. This is the mix I keep on the counter all December, right next to the Chex mix, because some things just belong in this house in winter.

Prep Time: 5 minutes | Cook Time: 0 minutes | Total Time: 5 minutes | Servings: 24 servings (about 3 cups of dry mix)

Ingredients

2 cups nonfat dry milk powder
1 cup powdered sugar, sifted
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (Dutch-process preferred)
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips, finely chopped
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
1/4 teaspoon vanilla powder (optional but recommended)
Mini marshmallows, for serving

Instructions

Combine dry ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together the dry milk powder, powdered sugar, cocoa powder, salt, and vanilla powder until evenly blended with no streaks of cocoa remaining.
Add the chocolate. Stir in the finely chopped chocolate chips. The small bits will melt into each cup as it is made, adding richness you cannot get from cocoa alone.
Store. Transfer the mix to an airtight jar or tin. It keeps at room temperature for up to 3 months — though in a house with children it will not last that long.
Make a cup. Add 3 tablespoons of mix to a mug. Pour in 8 ounces of hot (not boiling) milk or water and stir well until fully dissolved. Top with mini marshmallows.
Gift it. Spooned into a mason jar with a ribbon and a handwritten card, this mix costs almost nothing and means everything. Josie would approve.

Nutrition (per serving, made with whole milk)

The Best Homemade Hot Chocolate Mix — The Tin on the Counter That Says It’s Christmas