one simple recipe: heavenly hot chocolate

Here in beautiful Utah, we've had a far more extreme winter than usual. There have been record breaking low temps and snow accumulation totals. Brrr! That's led to far too little socializing among neighbors and friends.We decided to warm things up a bit with a good old-fashioned Relief Society social.

It was a rousing success. Keeping it simple, allowed everyone to socialize and reconnect. And if there's chocolate involved, you're pretty much guaranteed success. Not just any chocolate, really good chocolate. :)

Our resident foodie, Breanna Smithson of Breanna's Recipe Box, showed us how to make homemade hot cocoa. Seriously, I will never use powder again. It was so, so simple and amazingly delicious. 

Here's Breanna's recipe:

Hot Chocolate

1 1/2 cups whole milk

1/3 heaping cup dark chocolate chips (if you like a sweeter cocoa, use semi sweet)

1/8 tsp. kosher salt

In a small saucepan, heat milk over medium heat. Place chocolate chips and salt in a glass measuring cup and add steaming milk. Stir mixture until it looks chocolately, then pour into blender. Blend on high for 10-15 seconds. Pour hot chocolate back into the saucepan and heat until steaming. Pour in cups and add shaved dark chocolate. Enjoy!

Servings: 2

Using dark chocolate definitely made this a more "grown-up" version of hot cocoa. It had a bit of a bittersweet taste which I love. Breanna also made a quick video to demo the process. It's super fun to watch, so go check it out.

Along with the cocoa, we had a large variety of homemade scones--cranberry, blueberry, lemon poppyseed, chocolate chip and lemon ginger. (Thank you RS Presidency--Marci, Tirage, Marina, and Tamsen!) We all pretty much broke out the knives so we could taste each one. They were all wonderful. 

If I had to choose a favorite though, I think it would be Marina Jensen's lemon ginger scones. Yum!

Notes from Marina: I only baked my scones 18 minutes. I also drizzled the scones with a glaze made from powdered sugar and lemon juice.

Both sweet and simple makes for a great meeting. Here's to staying warm and cozy. 

Also shared at these fabulous blogs: Whipperberry, Six Sister's Stuff, I heart naptime, Thirty Handmade Days, Be Different, Act Normal, Tatertots and Jello.