In South America, you’ll find an amazing variety of hot chocolate recipes, among them tascalate, which is made with ground roasted corn, chocolate, ground pine nuts, achiote, vanilla and sugar. All the ingredients are ground together, mixed with milk and heated; for a cold drink the ingredients are stirred into cold water and added to ice. Another tradition is to add chilli to hot chocolate. The delicious healthy hot chocolate recipe below combines the antioxidants of cacao with turmeric, famed for its anti-inflammatory properties. The coconut oil helps to emulsify the raw cacao so that you get a silky consistency. Enjoy!

INGREDIENTS – Serves 2

400ml almond milk

1 tablespoon coconut oil

1 tablespoon cacao powder

½ teaspoon raw maca powder

½ teaspoon ground turmeric

3 pinches of ground cinnamon

pinch of cayenne

pinch of sea salt

METHOD

Heat the almond milk and coconut oil in a saucepan. Mix a little of the warm milk with the rest of the ingredients to form a smooth, loose paste.

Add this to the rest of the milk and whisk to combine all the ingredients before serving.

Recipe extracted from The Cacao Cookbook

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