January 31, 2022 Event: National Hot Chocolate Day

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History of Hot Chocolate

Hey Everyone, Happy National Hot Chocolate Day!

Since around 2010, January 31st has been recognized as National Hot Chocolate Day. It’s unclear who started this day but I’m sure glad that they did!

In this post, I thought it might be fun to share a little of what an online search turns up about the history of Hot Chocolate.

First off, some people call it hot chocolate, hot cocoa or even drinking chocolate and there are so many ways to create this tasty drink. “A distinction is sometimes made between "hot cocoa", made from cocoa powder (ground cacao beans from which much of the cocoa butter has been removed), and "hot chocolate", made directly from bar chocolate, which already contains cocoa, sugar, and cocoa butter. Thus, the major difference between the two is the cocoa butter, the absence of which makes hot cocoa significantly lower in fat than hot chocolate while still preserving all the antioxidants found in chocolate.

• Hot chocolate can be made with dark, semisweet, or bittersweet chocolate grated or chopped into small pieces and stirred into milk with the addition of sugar.

• Cocoa usually refers to a drink made with cocoa powder, hot milk or water, and sweetened to taste with sugar (or not sweetened at all).

• Instant hot chocolate or hot cocoa mix may be based on cocoa powder, powdered chocolate, or both; often includes powdered milk or comparable ingredients so it can be made without using milk; sugar or other sweeteners; and typically stabilizers and thickeners. However, mixes can vary widely (between countries and often between brands) in ingredients included, their ratio and their quality.

It’s no wonder that there are so many different ways to create, considering that it seems that archeologists have “found evidence that Mayan chocolate consumption occurred as early as 500 BC, and there is speculation that chocolate predates even the Mayans”. It also seems that the Mayans used to “make the chocolate drink, which was served cold” by “grounding cocoa seeds into a paste and mixing it with water, cornmeal, chili peppers, and other ingredients”.

Wow, that’s a very long time for a favorite winter time treat to be around! I know that I’m thankful that it survived for all of these years.

I’d like to hear from you all:

What do you call your hot chocolate drink and how do you make it?

I want to make sure that I share the wonderful sites that I found this information:

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_chocolate and https://nationaltoday.com/national-hot-chocolate-day/ and https://www.holidayinsights.com/moreholidays/December/national-cocoa-day.htm

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~ Sher