Pre Muse Musings by way of an Introduction

Well I suppose I ought to 'fess up that I don't care much for either milk or chocolate on their own.

The day I turned 7 years old and Margaret Thatcher took away my free school milk was one of the happiest of my life. For two and half years I had had to force this muck down my throat during first break in the morning, and then spend the next couple of hours 'til lunchtime feeling sick I wasn't allowed to not drink it, nor was I allowed to give it away to kids that loved the loathsome "white stuff". And if I 'accidentally' spilt my milk more than once a week it looked damn suspicious

So why don't I like Chocolate? Well thats not strictly speaking true. I do like chocolate, I just don't like all of the crap that goes into chocolate over and above the products of the cocoa tree.

For example British milk chocolate¹ contains typically around 25% cocoa solids and about 20% milk solids. The rest is sugar and, believe it or not, vegetable fat Its this addition of fat that gets me, it makes the product all slimey and sticky, that just glues your tongue to the roof of your mouth. (And glues the sugar to your teeth to the disgust of your dentist.)

Anyway enough of my grumpiness. On to the meat of our subject

Chocolate Milk²

Hot Chocolate

This is your basic mixing together of the two main protagonists and heating the whole brew up before serving. (Well to be fair you heat the milk up first and then add it to the choccy powder, but thats just being pedantic and it doesn't scan as nicely)

Sadly for this well known (and to be fair muched loved) product, sugar raises its ugly head again Did you know that Hot Chocolate powder has practically no chocolate in it? Its usually 75% sugar with a pinch of salt and maybe some anticoagulents. The poor old chocolate has to fit in to the gaps left by that lot of junk.

Cocoa

Now Cocoa on the other hand is the real thing

It is made solely from roasted and ground up cocoa beans (as the name tends to suggest ) The only problem with it is that it is bit tricky to handle as Chocolate isn't easily soluable in milk. The solution is to mix a little cold milk with your cocoa powder and stir vigorously to make a paste, and then add the hot milk on top to make your final drink

Now that you have your cocoa drink, you can start to add things to it to pep it up a bit. I guess your first choice will probably be a bit of sugar to make it sweet. Although knowing you 'orrible lot you'll want to load it so high with sugar that you'll all start having hypos all over the place For me, no more than one spoon of sugar should ever be added to a drink which will have three or even four spoons of cocoa powder in it³.

After adding the sugar, you could add some other bits and pieces to change the flavour to your liking. For example coffee to make Mocha⁴. Or you could add ginger⁵ to make a nice and spicy drink. However if you're really adventurous, try adding a few drops of Tabasco Sauce Yes, that is what I said, Tabasco Sauce! Honestly it really does work⁶

Cold Chocolate

See above. Then walk away for a couple of hours until cold.

Not practical you say? Yes I quite agree. Who on wants to hang around waiting for their Chocolate Milk, 'cos when you want it you want it now, and no mistake!

The solution is to use a blender to smash the cocoa paste into the cold milk. Just beat that little bleeder into submission! Show 'em whoose Boss, you little you...⁷

Alternatively, you could go out and buy a bottle of cold chocolate milk from any number of fine Grocery and Corner Stores. My initiation into choc milk came about this way whilst on holiday in Germany when I discovered the hostel where we were staying sold a delicious variety of cold milk from a vending machine for, I think, 35pf. I put on quite a bit of weight that week

Other Choccy Drinks

There are many mnay many varieties of other Chocolate drink out there, and I'm sure I will muse about them in time to come ⁸ but right now I'd like to draw you're attention to just one.

There is a heavily advertised instant hot chocolate drink available in the UK by the name of Options. It comes in jars or little sachets and the idea is you stick the powder in a cup and add boiling water to make a nice low calorie choccy hot drink. Well in the interests of research I purchased a couple of sachets, and I have to report I'm nor impressed. Its a bit thin tasting and has a list of alarming additives in it like, Aspartime, Xanthan gum and Emulsifier E471 - what ever that is

Lets just play it safe for now and stick to Cocoa

So do you want to add any more?

Well feel free to start a new conversation below, and I'll add your ideas to the Muse

¹*waves* to Light²Actually Researcher 38467 got in there first with this sweet and succinct offering on Chocolate Milk. Good work fella ³See I told you I don't have a sweet tooth!⁴And of anyone can tell me how you combine the words "chocolate" and "coffee" to come up with this new word, I'd be delighted to hear from you ⁵Actually this isn't a guide entry on ginger the spice (or Ginger the Spicegirl for that matter). Its a recipe for Ginger Biscuits, and damn fine it is too ⁶But hey, why should that be a surprise? You add in chocolate to make a decent Chilli, so why not add chilli to make a decent Cocoa.⁷...will taste even better if you can get someone else to wash up the blender for you ⁸Ovaltine has chocolate in it