Alton Brown's Instant Cocoa

[liralen]

The recipe can be found here.

It is surprisingly good.

Okay, maybe not *that* surprisingly good because I used the Valhrona cocoa from Donnelly's I bought last year when we were in Santa Cruz (they'll sell it powdered or in brick form, which is really nice for packing for travel or shipping) for the 'Dutched' cocoa. I actually have no idea if the Valhrona is Dutched, but it seems to be the darker color, sweeter flavored stuff.

The written recipe differs from the show by a couple of things. One of which is a pinch (okay, really generous shaking) of cayenne pepper, Alton added it as the spice does something with the chocolate that makes it *good* to his tastebuds. They also differ in that in the show, Alton said to fill the mug only a third full of the mixture, then pour enough hot water to just cover the powder, mix the paste with a whisk until smooth and *then* add the rest of the hot water.

I let John add his own cayenne, if he wanted, he decided not to. We both decided that it was pretty darned good for instant, and best of all we know and can read exactly what goes into it, that was no surprise.