Sweet Chocolate from Jalisco

Back in the kitchen again, but my creative juices were overloaded while back home in California. I decided to make a hot chocolate from two ingredients in my kitchen. The products of choice: Don Gustavo Sweet Chocolate and Original Nocilla (aka Nocilla Creama de Cacao con Avellanas). Hailing from Spain, Original Nocilla is similar to quite Nutella. Nocilla is a chocolate spread with cacao, of course, milk and hazelnuts. From my first impression, it is much thicker than Nutella.

Next, I am using Don Gustavo Sweet Chocolate from Jalisco, Mexico. This sweet chocolate contains Sugar, Cocoa Nibs, Peanuts, Cinnamon and Lecithin. Don Gustavo is not as prevalent in the market as Ibarra Sweet Chocolate which has been around since 1925. However, I’ve noticed it more and more stores here in Texas. Ibarra’s Sweet Chocolate consists of Sugar Cacao Nibs, Soy Lecithin (Emulsifer) and Cinnamon Flavor.

I followed the directions of heating up my milk and breaking off two squares of Don Gustavo Sweet Chocolate. After heating the milk in the microwave for 45 seconds, I added the milk and sweet chocolate to the blender. After giving it a quick pulse a few times and making sure all of the chocolate chunks have been pulverized, I added one tablespoon of Nocilla and hit pulse again.

My fragrant, frothy mixture (look at my picture) was then poured into a mug and nuked another 45 seconds for good measure. Tada! A quick, easy frothy Mexican/Spanish Hot Chocolate. One aspect I preferred about this easy recipe was adding the Nocilla. Since it has a thick texture, it added more body to the hot chocolate. Normally, many hot chocolates and hot cocoas fall flat because they taste like flavored water…yuck. The hazelnut flavor along with Don Gustavo’s cinnamon and peanut ingredients paired very well together.

I will definitely try this one again!