Planning Ahead For Christmas With Hot Chocolate

I love homemade gifts. I love making them and I love receiving them.  Last year, I tried making more gifts for the family and friends for Christmas.  For my son's preschool teachers, I made them all some cupcakes. And what better way to enjoy some cake, than to have it with some homemade hot chocolate. So they each got a jar.  I know it's a little early for Christmas, but you can make these well in advance. Why not be prepared? Instead of bringing a bottle of wine or flowers to a Christmas dinner party, bring a jar of hot chocolate mix! It takes minutes to whip up and I don't know many who do not love a steaming cup of hot cocoa.

I found some nice jars from Lakeland and filled them up with the hot chocolate mix.  I used my pretty Cath Kidston Christmas sticker labels for the tags. I peeled them off and stuck them to old cards and cut them out, punched a hole in each one and attached them to the jars with twine.  On the back of the jar, I used the larger Cath stickers and wrote the instructions for making a cup. Very simple but pretty. 

Homemade Hot Chocolate
Don't know cups? See my handy dandy conversions and equivalents page

I have added cinnamon to this recipe which really adds a little something something. The corn flour helps give a nice rich texture and keeps things from getting all clumped up in the jar.

2 cups icing sugar
1 cup cocoa
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp corn flour

Whisk all of the ingredients in a large bowl and pour into sealed container. I know this is not scientific, but I've kept mine for a year and it's absolutely fine.

To make one large cup:
Mix 1/4 cup of cocoa mixture with 1 1/2 cups of steamy hot milk. If you have a milk steamer, use it. It's devine!