Drinking Chocolate with Nutella

I really had planned to call this recipe just "Perfect Hot Chocolate" because it is, to me.  For everyone else, who likes their hot chocolate like Swiss Miss, it may be a bit much.  That's why I ended up going with drinking chocolate - because this is as close as you're going to get to actually drinking chocolate.  This is a "Christmas movies with the family, snow falling outside," serious hot chocolate.  Plus, there's Nutella in it, and Nutella makes everything 10x better.

What You'll Need: 

2.5 cups whole milk

4 tbsp cocoa powder

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/2 a vanilla bean

4 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp Nutella

a generous amount of marshmallows!

To make it: 

In a small saucepan, heat milk over medium heat.  Add the cocoa powder and whisk it in as thoroughly as possible.  Then add the cinnamon, sugar, and the scraped out the inside of the vanilla bean.  Keep heating the cocoa until it's to optimal serving temperature (to me that is just before boiling).

Stir in the Nutella quickly, and serve immediately.

Don't be stingy with the marshmallows - as many as everyone wants, even if that means adding more mid-mug.

On a related note, the holidays can be really stressful, so if you feel like replacing that Nutella with Bailey's (I wouldn't recommend using both) you go right ahead.  Just make sure you don't end up on the naughty list!  

*photography by danny robinson