Eden Project

Time of Gifts calendar: Day 11: Eden chef Tony Trenerry’s spiced hot chocolate recipe

Our chef Tony has given a fiery, spicy twist to this decadent drink. His luxurious hot chocolate has a double-warming effect: the heat of the drink, and the kick of fresh chillies!

Spiced hot chocolate recipe

Ingredients

• 1 litre milk
• 2 fresh red chillies
• 100g dark chocolate
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 2 teaspoons honey
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 vanilla pod, or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method
Wash the chillies and make a few cuts on them. Place the chillies in a pan with the milk and the other spices and heat up for five minutes. Melt the chocolate in a double-boiler (or in the microwave if you prefer). Once melted, add the chocolate and the honey to the warm milk, and heat gently for 10 minutes until the hot chocolate thickens. Remove the cinnamon sticks and serve!

Makes four cups.

Chocolate facts

We grow the cocoa plant  – the source of chocolate – in our Rainforest Biome. Come and visit to find out more about the fascinating story of chocolate and see the cocoa pods (pictured below) up close! In the meantime, did you know that:

• Cocoa’s Latin name Theobroma cacao means ‘food of the gods’.
• Chocolate was first reserved for the rich, and went on to become part of the emergency rations kit for armies, navies and rescue teams. Now it’s ‘a luxury’ that nearly all of us can have.
• The world grows 3 million tonnes of cocoa a year. In the UK we eat around 10kg of chocolate each a year … yum!

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Categories:

A Time of Gifts Calendar, Food

Tags:

A Time of Gifts, Christmas, Food