Orange Spiced Hot Chocolate (Dairy-free / Vegan)

For my last recipe of the year, I thought I’d share one of our favourite Winter drinks – Orange Spiced Hot Chocolate. It’s really easy to make and tastes amazing!

I love the chocolate and orange flavour combo, especially this time of year 
How about you? 

Orange Spiced Hot Chocolate

You can buy ready-made orange flavoured hot chocolate blends, but I find they often contain a lot of cane sugar. I don’t tolerate cane sugar well these days (especially in drinks) and just one cup of the shop-bought blends can leave me feeling queasy for a good hour or so, which is no fun at all :/ My sweeteners of choice for this drink are coconut sugar or maple syrup. Both add a delicious caramel-like sweetness to the drink.

This winter, my preferred milk for this drink has been Oatly. Just a few seconds of whisking produces the most amazing froth! I buy the long life ‘Ambient’ cartons that are fortified with calcium, riboflavin, D2 and B12 (the one in the blue carton).  The Oatly milks contain very low levels of gluten so, if you’re super sensitive to gluten, it would be best to use another milk such as soya, almond, rice or coconut drinking milk. I’ve used all of them, and they all work well in this drink. It’s just that some are thinner, and some froth better. All taste good though!

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Makes 1

Hands-on time: 5 minutes    Ready in: 5 minutes

Ingredients
1 cup non dairy milk
½ TBSP cocoa powder
½ TBSP coconut sugar or maple syrup
¼ tsp pure orange extract
Cinnamon stick

Method
Give the carton of milk a really good shake, then pour a cup’s worth into a small pan. Gently heat through. When warm, whisk in the cocoa powder using a balloon whisk. When fully incorporated, whisk in the sweetener and orange extract. Taste test, and add more sweetener or orange extract, to taste. Pour into a cup and serve with a cinnamon stick.

Products used in this recipe
Oatly Enriched Oat Drink
Green & Blacks Organic Cocoa
Biona Organic Coconut Sugar  or Clarks Original Maple syrup
Star Kay White Pure Orange Extract (bought from Lakeland)

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Orange Spiced Hot Chocolate

 Have a wonderful Christmas everyone
I look forward to catching up with you in 2015!

 

5 thoughts on “Orange Spiced Hot Chocolate (Dairy-free / Vegan)

    1. I keep forgetting that it must be mid-summer where you are. Is it super hot? We’ve got heavy rains at the moment. The fields near my house (the ones in my top banner) are flooded, so instead of sheep we’ve got geese swimming around in them. It’s a pretty cool view from our lounge window!

      1. Wow that sure does sound like a spectacular view!
        yep sure is warm – most days around 30C – though I love it that way! I don’t tolerate the cold well at all!

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