Hot chocolate and toast are a pretty simple culinary combination. No matter the simplicity, this combination is very near and dear to me. As I’m sitting hear writing this, I’m overcome with all of the memories that hot chocolate and toast are associated with for me
My memories of hot chocolate and toast come from my Aunt Kay and Uncle Ronnie. They literally lived right behind us growing up. We could climb over their fence in our own backyard and be in their’s. We would have so much fun with everyone. I can’t even count the number of hours I have spent over the years there. If it was warm outside, my parents would leave the backdoor to the house open, and I could see Aunt Kay and Uncle Ronnie’s house from there. I used to scream and cry for my cousin Nae, and my mom would have to call Nae and ask her to come and get me so I would stop crying for her.
There were also many days where everyone just sat outside on their front patio and just talked and laughed. I remember days of getting breakfast and Uncle Ronnie taking us and Aunt Kay on a drive out to Graffiti Road. Graffiti Road was a road that had all kinds of graffiti painted everywhere. It was always neat to see the artwork. So many of the pieces would have taken so much time. I think it’s since been paved over.
There were many Christmas Eves hosted at their home for close family and friends. Everyone participated in performing for everyone from skits, to singing, to the guys playing in their band, to my sister and I tap dancing for everyone while singing about a reindeer who had a red nose. Yep, we were that cute!
I can remember going outside in very cold weather (it was Indiana after all), all bundled up in my heavy-coat, gloves, snow boots, and hat. If you can picture Randy from A Christmas Story, that’s pretty close to how I was dressed (maybe I’m exaggerating a little, but you get the picture). My sister and I would go to Aunt Kay and Uncle Ronnie’s house to play in the snow with our cousin. We would play in the yard or we would sled down the street with our older cousins; they had a pretty awesome hill on their street!
When our fingers and toes were starting to go numb from the bitter cold, it was time to go inside and warm up. Aunt Kay or Uncle Ronnie would fix us up some hot chocolate and toast to munch and sip on, while we played a very exciting game of Sorry or Euchre.
Now I’m not going to tell you how to make toast. I think you can figure that out on your own: toast some bread in a toaster and put butter on it (okay, maybe I did tell you how to make it-just keep it handy to go with the hot cocoa). But I am going to show you a really cool method for making hot cocoa from scratch using a Keurig. (I am not sure if this method will work in the Keurig Mini or other Keurig models, but I am using a Keurig K40 Brewing System, for your reference.)
Ingredients:
2 tbsp chocolate syrup
1 and ½ tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tbsp sugar
Mini marshmallows
(make sure your Keurig has water in it too; you need water for the machine to do the work)
Buttered Toast (optional)
Add the chocolate syrup, cocoa powder, and sugar to a coffee mug. I’m using a 16oz coffee mug.
Following the manufacturer’s instructions for hot water, brew the hot water into the mug filled with the hot cocoa ingredients, using the 9 oz setting (or as close to the 9 oz as you can get with your Keurig).
Stir the cocoa.
Top with mini marshmallows. Drizzle additional chocolate syrup on top if you like.
Now if you‘re having buttered toast with your cocoa, dip that buttered toast on into the hot chocolatey goodness! Go ahead, it’s good, I promise!
- 2 tbsp chocolate syrup
- 1 and ½ tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
- 2 tbsp sugar
- Mini marshmallows
- (make sure your Keurig has water in it too; you need water for the machine to do the work)
- Buttered Toast (optional)
- Add the chocolate syrup, cocoa powder, and sugar to a coffee mug. I’m using a 16oz coffee mug.
- Following the manufacturer’s instructions for hot water, brew the hot water into the mug filled with the hot cocoa ingredients, using the 9 oz setting (or as close to the 9 oz as you can get with your Keurig).
- Stir the cocoa.
- Top with mini marshmallows. Drizzle additional chocolate syrup on top if you like.
- Now if you‘re having buttered toast with your cocoa, dip that buttered toast on into the hot chocolatey goodness! Go ahead, it’s good, I promise!
