Welcome to my blog!

Hello, Jam lovers! Welcome to my brand new confections blog :)

A little “why”:

Winter months mean lots of behind the scenes work for food businesses in Chicago, as we wait for patio and farmers market weather to come back! For me, this has meant settling into The Hatchery, testing out some shipping options, and thinking about how to provide more value to my customers besides just slinging jams. I’d been toying with the idea of a recipe series for awhile; the most common question that I get is “What do I do with this jam?” and “What do I eat this with”. I have quite a few ideas up my sleeves for fun pairings/ simple dishes that you can try at home.

Since February is National Chocolate Lover’s Month, I decided to start in with an easy win: Fancy Hot Chocolate! I've noticed there's lots of "single serve" cozy recipes out there, and thought this fit right in.


I treated mysel… err, the office.. to a small espresso maker a few years ago, but found that having instant hot water is actually super convenient for multiple things: tea, simple syrup, cup o’noodles, warm water for yeast to bloom, etc. Making a single serve coffee or tea is a nice little treat, why not a fancy hot chocolate?! 

While you don’t NEED an espresso maker for this recipe, I always find it fun to try my hand at latte art (spoiler: I’m very good at cloud shapes but not much else. Can’t win em all.). Anyhow, you just need to heat the ingredients, a microwave or small pot works just fine.

Modifications:

Try using coffee or cocktail syrups that you think would be good as the simple syrup ingredient- you just want some liquid to help dissolve the cocoa powder. I can see rosemary, orange, hazelnut, or peppermint syrup working well with hot chocolate!

Pairings:

I had my cup with some Vanilla Bean Macarons and a new book :) Meringues or a muffin would go well too. 

Enjoy experimenting with different chips and syrups! Stay cozy, friends. 

PDF here!

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