The Writer in Black

The Writer in Black

Monday, January 12, 2015

Feeding the Active Writer

School is closed because of icy road conditions.  I'm home today with my daughter (well, not exactly since she's visiting with friends up the street who are also home today because of the weather).

When the weather outside is frightful, a fire can be delightful.  But something else that's delightful in foul winter weather is a big cup of sweet, rich, hot chocolate.

The problem, of course, for those on a low-carb diet is sugar.  Not only us sugar added to the chocolate in standard recipes for hot cocoa, but the milk itself has a surprising amount of sugar.  One cup of milk has 13 grams of sugar!

What to do, what to do.

Take a look at heavy cream. One cup of heavy cream has 3 grams carbs of which zero are from sugar.  No sugar.

So we can make our hot chocolate with heavy cream, resulting in a rich, creamy utterly decadent hot beverage.  Just the thing to chase the chill away on those cold winter nights.

Ingredients:
1 cup heavy cream
2 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
4 Tbsp sugar-equivalent artificial sweetener (as always, I use sucralose, the generic for Splenda)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract.
Optional:  sugar free whipped cream

Heat the cream to a low simmer.
Add the cocoa and sweetener and stir until they are completely dissolved.  It helps to "smash" any lumps against the side of the pan
Stir in the vanilla.
While it's right at the edge between a simmer and a full boil, remove from the heat and pour into a cup.
Top with a large dollop of whipped cream.

Enjoy.


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