a simple real food recipe :: peppermint hot cocoa :: dairy and caffeine free options

I want to share my family’s Christmas Eve tradition with you!

The girls get new Christmas jammies from mama and daddy, and exchange gifts with each other; we cuddle up with blankets and a Christmas movie, and sip on hot peppermint cocoa 🙂You can leave out the peppermint if you wish but it is SO good 😉

This year I practiced a fun idea I saw somewhere on Pinterest last year. Freeze up a sheet tray of homemade whipped cream and cut out fun shapes to place in your hot cocoa!  I thought it would be fun to sprinkle it with broken up naturally colored candy canes! You can usually find naturally colored and sweetened candy canes in most health food stores this time of year. HERE is what the ones I get look like. Just put a couple in a plastic bag and bust it up with a meat tenderizer or hammer 😉 It turned out so good! Add some peppermint extract to the whipped cream before you whip it up – it was SO good!We do up carob powder vs the cocoa to avoid caffeine before bed, but if you want the chocolate just go for a raw 100% cocoa. Our health food store carries it freshly ground and in the fridge section along with the carob powder. I don’t taste a difference in the carob versus the cocoa, and my husband never mentions a difference in taste – he doesn’t even know 😉

You’ll need:

3 cups organic whole milk (raw preferable, but a non homogenized low pasteurized is fine – never ULP). (If you are dairy free use coconut milk –SO good!)

3-4 TB carob powder or raw cocoa (I get my cheapest in bulk at our health food store but I linked up so you could see what it looked like and what you are looking for)

3-4 TB raw honey or pure maple syrup (local if possible!)

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 -2 tsp peppermint extract (depending on how minty  you want it – start out small – you can always add more)

1. Warm the milk slowly in a pot.
2. Add the rest of the ingredients into a blender while the milk is warming.
3. Add the milk to the blender as soon as it’s hot enough and pulse to combine and create a fun foam at the top 😉
4. Top with homemade whipped cream and crumbles of crushed up naturally colored candy cane.

Kitchen Tips:

1. This amount makes enough for my girls to have a half a mug full and my husband and I to have a full mug.
2. Everyone’s chocolate taste is different. Start out with small and add more if you need.
3. Read THIS and THIS on the benefits of drinking raw milk. The raw milk properties are still kept in the heated milk as long as it doesn’t go hotter than 13o-ish degrees F. This is why I heat up slowly – it will be plenty hot enough and still stay raw – no worries 😉

YOUR TURN!

What are your Christmas Eve traditions? Are you starting any new traditions this year?

This post was shared at Real Food Forager’s Fat Tuesday, and The Polikva Family’s Family Table Tuesday, and Real Food Freaks Freaky Friday!