Here in Los Gatos there is an award winning French bakery and chocolatier called Fleur De Cocoa.  For years we would stop by this tiny little shop to get their decadent hot chocolate.  Truly, it’s like drinking pure chocolate but in a liquid form, it’s just delicious. I never really thought of trying to make it at home, why bother when I could get it at the local chocolatier?  But when the family is craving decadent hot chocolate late at night on a cold wintery weekend, it prompted me to make a variation of this decadent chocolate liquid at home.

Fleur de Cocoa in Los Gatos, California

Decadent Dark Chocolate Hot Chocolate

Ingredients:

• 1 bar of dark Belgium chocolate – you can get it at Trader Joe’s
• 2 cups of whole milk
• 1/2 cup of coconut milk (optional)
• 1/2 cup of half/half
• 1 tsp vanilla

Directions:

• In a pot warm the milk until bubbles form on the edges
• Add 9 squares of the dark chocolate and stir to melt the chocolate in the milk
• Add 1 tsp of vanilla
• Once the chocolate is completely melted into the milk add the coconut milk and half/half and stir
• Stir the mixture until all the liquid is incorporated and smooth.
• Serve hot in mugs and top with whipped cream if you like.

While making this decadent hot chocolate I remembered the old 2001 movie Chocolat, starring Juliette Binoche, Judi Dench, Alfred Molina, Johnny Dep and Lena Olin. What a classic. I love that movie. I watched it again with Anjali and Rani. If you haven’t seen Chocolat, I highly recommend you watch it. But be sure to have some chocolate around, because when you are done watching the movie you will crave some good chocolate.

Coincidentally, Chocolat is the movie that got us introduced to Fleur de Cocoa in the first place. I remember commenting to Hitesh after watching the movie 10 years ago, that wouldn’t it be nice to have a chocolate shop like the one in the movie that we could go to, to get some real creamy hot chocolate.  And Hitesh said we do. He had just read an article in the Wall Street Journal about an unknown small chocolate shop in Los Gatos, California that had won top honors in a chocolate making competition. What do you know? We actually had a chocolate shop like Juliette Binoche’s Chocolaterie close by. We checked it out right away and have been hooked on Fleur de Cocoa ever since!

Fleur de Cocoa in Los Gatos, California

Fleur de Cocoa. Los Gatos, California