Because Everyone Loves Hot Chocolate

With the weather cooling and the leaves falling, who can resist a nice warm cup of hot chocolate? So, go to your pantry and find that little box, tear open one of the packets and dump that chocolate smelling stuff into your cup and add hot water.

Yeah, didn’t sound so good to me either.

Don’t get me wrong, I go for the whole instant hot chocolate thing when in a pinch or when I’m lazy (usually the latter), but if you want real, warm, frothy, tummy warming, mind at-easing, make you want to wear cashmere sweaters and fluffy slippers kind of good hot chocolate, you must try the recipe below for Raspberry Hot Chocolate.

Raspberry Hot Chocolate

• 2 cups cream
• 1 cup milk
• 6 oz. bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
• 2 tbsp sugar
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 tbsp butter
• 1 cup raspberries
• whipped cream

In saucepan combine cream, milk, and sugar until hot, but do not boil. Add chocolate and butter and reduce heat to simmer. Stir until chocolate is melted. Puree 1 cup raspberries and pour into the mixture, stirring until smooth. Pour into mugs and garnish with whipped cream and fresh raspberries.

For those of you, who may not enjoy the berry addition to it try this traditional recipe for Luscious Hot Chocolate.

Luscious Hot Chocolate

• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup half and half
• 1 oz. semisweet chocolate, chopped
• 1 oz. unsweetened chocolate, chopped
• 8 tsp sugar
• ½ tsp vanilla

Heat milk, half and half, both chocolates, and sugar in a saucepan on medium-low heat until chocolates melt and sugar dissolves. Pour half of the mixture into a blender and mix until frothy. Return to the saucepan and add vanilla. Stir briefly and serve.

Recipes provided by LDSLiving

Kraft's Simply Sensational Truffles

Kraft's Food & Family Magazine is a great source of quick, easy and delicious recipes for me. So, it's no surprise this is from their Holiday 08/Winter 09 edition. I had planned to start taking pictures of each step (and continue doing so for all future recipes) but after 45 minutes of searching for the camera, I gave up and just started. I found out later that my husband had taken it to the football field with him. So, next time!

The pro's:
It's fast!
It's easy!
It's deeeeelish!

The con's:
They go so fast!

So, here's the ingredients!

Simply Sensational Truffles
-- 2 1/2 packages (20 squares) Baker's Semi-Sweet Chocolate, divided

-- 1 package (8 oz.) Philadelphia Cream Cheese, softened

Melt 8 chocolate squares. Beat cream cheese with mixer until creamy; stir in melted chocolate. Refrigerate until firm.



Shape into 36 balls. Place on wax paper-covered tray.

Melt remaining chocolate. Use fork to dip truffles; return to tray. Decorate, then refrigerate 1 hour. Refrigerate leftovers.

Decorations: Top with finely chopped Planters Cocktail Peanuts or sprinkles. Or, coat truffles with powdered sugar or unsweetened cocoa powder instead of dipping in chocolate.

Here's what I found. I used the 8 squares of chocolate to make the truffles, but I only used 7 more blocks (instead of 10) for dipping. Also, the time for the chocolate and cream cheese to harden seemed to take about an hour or so - I learned this through trial and error after trying to form balls after 30 minutes and then get getting gooey globs of chocolate. Don't rush that or your truffles won't look very pretty.
Also, instead of dipping into the chocolate, as it seems when my truffle hit the warm chocolate it would start melting, I just used a spoon to dip the chocolate back over the truffle, which worked wonderfully!
And another suggestion for decorating, use white chocolate to decorate on top of the dipped truffle, or dip completely in white chocolate. Also, I used Pampered Chef's Sweet Caramel sprinkle to top the dipped chocolate.

Enjoy!