Hot chocolate calculator
Scales chocolate or cocoa to a volume of milk for a chosen richness, and distinguishes the two drinks that share the name.
43g chocolate to 250ml
17g per 100ml, if you would rather scale it yourself.
Chop finely. Heat the milk to around 70°C — hot, well short of boiling — then add the chocolate and whisk until fully dispersed.
What this cannot tell you
- Perceived richness depends on the chocolate's cocoa butter content, which is not on the label.
- Cocoa-powder drinks cannot reach the viscosity of chocolate-based ones at any quantity, because the cocoa butter is not present.
- Thick chocolate a la taza is thickened with starch. The tool does not model starch and cannot reproduce that texture.
- Sugar is not calculated: it depends entirely on the base used and on preference.
Two drinks share the name
Drinking chocolate made from real chocolate carries its cocoa butter into the cup, so it is rich and coats the mouth. Cocoa-powder drinks have had most of that butter pressed out, so they are thinner and need more sugar. Neither is a worse version of the other, and the technique for each is different — see making hot chocolate.