Winter warmer hot chocolate with toasted ginger marshmallow

Keep warm with this special hot chocolate this winter…

For our bi-weekly Beeld column, we wrote the following…

 

As most of you know, we often write about our childhood and growing up in Mafikeng. As life tends to go, we look back fondly on what once was; hindsight makes moments once taken for granted the most treasured memories. Just as we were hitting our teen years, our parents had the wise initiative to send us to Christian-based youth camps in KwaZulu-Natal which kept us out of trouble for 3 weeks of the year. The camps would be held in winter and summer, and our parents would go to a lot of trouble to make sure we got there, unless we had a hockey tour that coincided with the camp and forced us, begrudgingly, to miss out on the winter camps. Our adventure would start with the 10 hour drive down to Durban that would be followed by a 2 hour bus trip down past Port Shepstone. Finally arriving at the camp site would be the climax of the camp, the anticipation having been built up for 12 hours and hopes of seeing friends last encountered six months back. Of course, sports teams and camp groups would be formed after which the fun and games would begin.

 

One of our highlights was certainly the menu. For some reason, the food always tasted good on camp. Despite the fact that we hated oats porridge at home, we’d gobble up 2 bowls of it at camp. Have you experienced that before? When you go on a hike, for instance, simple foods such as ProVita biscuits and tinned tuna (no salt, no mayonnaise!) tastes amazing and you find yourself wondering ‘why don’t I eat this at home?’ yet when you try it back in the comfort of your office over lunch break, it suddenly evokes none of the taste sensations you seem to have experienced back on the hiking trail. Maybe our minds play games on us in survival situations so that we are filled with pleasure at the simplest of indulgences, but camp food never tastes as good back at home. That’s how we felt about our youth camp food until we discovered their secret one morning when walking past the kitchen where the staff were slaving over a 40 L pot of maltabella porridge. What was the magical ingredient which made the most repulsive breakfast porridges, salad dressings, custards and jugs of milo taste so heavenly? Condensed milk.

 

To us, condensed milk is the most heavenly invention on this planet. Sold in those colourful tubes, ‘Dirkie’ condensed milk was a once-in-a-blue-moon treat for us. The packaging in itself was such a clever marketing angle: it made a chore such as brushing your teeth seem so much more fun when you could pretend to be doing it with condensed milk. For us, we used to save up our weekly pocket money until we could afford to buy a tube of Dirkie at our local butchery – Seline always going for the original flavour, while Leandri experimented with the various available flavours! Condensed milk goes into all our favourite things: fudge, lemon meringue pie and nostalgic youth-camp milo.

 

That youth camp Milo is still something we crave now, almost a decade later. On Camp, after the night time program came to an end all the kids would run to the kitchen, waiting eagerly at the door with our plastic camping mugs shaking in our icy hands. Inside the kitchen, 6 large old-school tin teapots were bubbling away on the stove tops, filled with Milo, milk and tins and tins of condensed milk. When the kitchen staff walked out of the kitchen with those teapots it almost felt like seeing Santa Claus coming down the chimney, with arms full of gifts. We’d all wish our mugs were bigger, always begging the cooks to fill the cup up to the brim. Sitting on benches with our friends, kicking our feet in delight as we sipped up the pure bliss, we would dream about the future; who we would be and what we would do. We must admit though, sitting there we never thought we’d end up where we are today! We have been on such a great adventure and are eternally grateful for that.

 

Winter always evokes memories of that special time and that sweet drink, so we came up with the warm dessert drink below as a special treat and trip down memory lane. The layers of chocolate ganache, steaming milk and espresso shot mix together to form a satisfying tummy warmer, with the toasted ginger marshmallow on top providing an interesting twist and burst of flavour. We’d serve this as a dessert after a lingering lunch, or as a special mid-night snack for the kids during the school holidays. Stay warm this winter, and treat yourself!

 

Winter warmer hot chocolate with ginger marshmallow

 

Serves 6

360ml espresso (this is 6 shots)

1 litre milk

200g dark chocolate

150ml cream

90ml condensed milk

pinch of salt

For the marshmallow:

70 g egg white

500g castor sugar

1 T glucose syrup

25mL powdered gelatine

1.5 cups cold water

1 teaspoons grated lemon zest

1 teaspoon freshly grated ginger

cornstarch, for dusting

 

Instructions

1. First, make the marshmallows by heating 450mL castor sugar, glucose syrup and 185mL water in a pot to 127 degrees C.
2. In a separate bowl, sprinkle the gelatine powder over 185mL cold water and leave for 5 minutes. Heat the gelatine in the microwave for 45 minutes at 100% until the gelatine has dissolved (the mixture should be transparent). In a mixer, whisk the egg whites until frothy, and then add in the remaining castor sugar by whisking on a high setting. Once this glossy mixture is at soft peak stage, slowly add the warm gelatine with whisking at high speed. Once this is fully incorporated, slowly pour in the hot sugar syrup in a thin stream with high speed whisking. Continue to whisk until all the syrup is introduced, lower the whisking speed to medium-high and add in the lemon zest and grated ginger. Whisk until the mixture has returned to room temperature. Pour into greased pans and leave for 3 hours until set. Dust the mallows with cornstarch before cutting as desired into shapes.
3. To make the chocolate ganache, heat the cream in the microwave until just steaming. Break the dark chocolate into little pieces and place in a microwavable bowl. Cover with the steaming cream and condensed milk and return to the microwave for 30 seconds. Leave to stand for a few minutes to allow the chocolate to melt before stirring. Stir the ganache until smooth. Divide the ganache between your mugs or latte glasses.
4. Bring the milk to a boil in a saucepan. Add the vanilla essence and then divide the milk between the mugs. We poured our milk slowly, to avoid having the chocolate and milk layers mix before serving.
5. Top the milk layer with 60ml of espresso (or strong instant coffee), pouring the espresso in over the back of a tablespoon to avoid having the layers mix.
6. Finally, chop the marshmallows into little cubes and scatter over the top of the drink. Blast with a blowtorch to scorch the edges of the marshmallow. Serve while hot, with a teaspoon for mixing the layers together and scooping the marshmallows off the top
   

   Make marshmallow from scratch or simply buy your favourite type from your local store