How to make genuinely good hot chocolate

Cocoa powder has had most of its fat pressed out, and fat is what gives a hot chocolate body. A drink made from powder tastes thin however much you use.

Chopped bar chocolate at roughly 40–60g per 200ml of milk gives a proper drink. Around 70% is the useful range — high enough that the milk's sweetness does not dominate, low enough to stay balanced.

Heat the milk to around 70°C — steaming, with movement at the edges, but not boiling. Boiling produces a skin and a distinctly cooked flavour that dominates the chocolate.

Whisk the chopped chocolate into the hot milk off the heat. Whisking rather than stirring matters: it emulsifies the cocoa butter into the milk, and that emulsion is what gives the drink its texture.

The thick Spanish and Italian styles are thickened with cornflour cooked into the drink, not with more chocolate. Adding chocolate alone gives something intense and still pourable, never spoon-standing.

A teaspoon of cornflour slaked in cold milk per 200ml, added and cooked briefly, produces the traditional texture. Slake it cold — added dry to hot milk it lumps immediately.

Salt. A small pinch suppresses bitterness and lifts the perceived sweetness and chocolate intensity. It is the single highest-return addition and it costs nothing.

And letting it stand for a minute before drinking. Straight off the heat the drink is too hot to taste; aroma perception is much better a few degrees down. Vanilla, cinnamon or cardamom are all worth trying after those two, not before.