Hot Chocolate: 50 Heavenly Cups of Comfort (50 Series) Hardcover – September 15, 2006

One of my friends claims to make the best hot chocolate in the world. All I have to say is that they haven't tried the recipes in THIS book! "Hot Chocolate" by Fred Thompson has the most creative recipes I've seen yet. There is even a recipe for marshmallows if you want to make everything from scratch.I tried three hot chocolate recipes and must say that I was the most intrigued with the "Vanilla Hot Chocolate Seduction." This recipe is for four but I reduced the ingredients to make it just for one. The main ingredients are milk, vanilla, white chocolate and Triple Sec. To take it up a notch I also added orange zest which I strained out after everything had heated up. It was perfectly delicious and very soothing. I will definitely make it again!My second favorite recipe was the cinnamon hot chocolate which calls for one teaspoon cinnamon. May I recommend you try Saigon cinnamon when you make it? You will be hooked! The third recipe I tried is more of a mix and it contains crushed peppermint sticks. I found some candy canes and it worked great although my husband complained at all the noise I was making to crush them.One of the things that might surprise you is that many of the recipes call for salt. I tried some with salt and some without. I don't think the salt is necessary. While most of the recipes are easy to make there are a few with ten or more ingredients which seemed a little over the top. One recipe calls for bittersweet, semisweet and milk chocolate plus cocoa powder. Some of the recipes call for more exotic ingredients like lemongrass and star anise.While I used fat-free milk, many of the recipes call for soy milk, whole milk, half-and-half or heavy cream. One recipe is quite creative and calls for marscarpone cheese instead of whipped cream. Most of the recipes call for sugar but feel free to use sugar substitutes. Stevia worked great in all the recipes I tried. Also, most of the recipes are for 2-12 servings. So you may have to adapt the recipes depending on how many people you are having over for a drink.Some things you might want on hand before the book arrives include creme de cacao, Godiva chocolate liqueur, Kahlua and brandy. But there are just a few adult beverages in this book. If you are making drinks for kids and adults at the same time, the alcohol can be added to each adult's cup at the end.One thing you might want to do when you first make some of these recipes is to halve the amount of chocolate you add. Sometimes the recipe can turn out a bit thicker than you might prefer. So if you add less to start with you can figure out how much you really want to add. I found some of the drinks were thin and some thick depending on how much chocolate I added. So you can truly adapt these recipes to your taste. This book would be perfect as a gift in winter, perhaps with a few ingredients (like gourmet chocolates) and a cute mug.~The Rebecca Review

My wife asked me for one of those sets of powered hot chocolates with different flavors for xmas, but I decided to get her this instead. Now she's mad at me because she can't even drink the powered stuff any more--this book has spoiled her! It teaches you how to make real hot chocolate made by melting chocolate and adding milk. Once you get the basic idea, you've got a host of different recipes for variations. My only complaint is that we started drinking too much for a while there--and these recipes definitely aren't healthy! But if you're looking for a treat, you'll enjoy it.

I love hot chocolate in the winter time and this book has given me more ways to spice up my beverage. I will be very excited and prepared when winter comes so that I will have a variety of ways to prepare it. Um, Um Good!

Too many unusable recipes, we returned.

I was so excited to find this book, especially since it has a section of hot chocolate mix recipes I could use for gift jars.Until I tried the recipes.They are beyond bad. The white hot chocolate mix especially springs to mind; it was absolutely undrinkable...one sip and my husband and I poured the contents of both mugs down the drain. Unbearable.We also tried the Mexican hot chocolate (not the mix) and it went down the drain too.We have to wonder if the author actually made any of these drinks? Or just thought them up and wrote them down.What a huge disappointment! Don't waste your time or money.

loved it, but is there any recipe books with people who have lactose intolerance? i got a blue book not the one in the picture are they the same?

I bought this book because I'm about to open a Café and I wanted to try newrecipes and this book it was great! Great recipes, full of new ideas, simply delicious!! I totally recomend it!!

book has nice variety. Love it. From my research on reviews this was the best and the reviews were right on point.

Still making our way through and so far so tasty

Yummy recipes

yummy drinks haven't tried all of them yet. not much for reading but should get through it soon to try them