Hot chocolate

First of all, get the ingredients ready, it's important to always have them on hand as this will make the process much smoother. Measure out the right amount of milk and chocolate, making sure it's of really good quality, or even mixing several types of chocolate to enhance the flavour.

While the milk is heating up, crush the chocolate I use a caterpillar chopper for this process, but you can also crush it by hand, just be careful to break it into very small pieces so that it melts more easily in the milk.

Start by heating the milk in a saucepan, for this step it is recommended to use a thicker-walled saucepan to prevent the milk from burning. Do not let the milk start to boil, the ideal temperature is when small bubbles start to appear on the sides, but it is not yet boiling.

Then add the chocolate and stir until completely melted. Then add the sugar and cocoa powder and cook for another 5-10 minutes, stirring continuously.

At the end, crack in the vanilla pod seeds, which you can easily do by cutting the vanilla pod lengthwise and scooping out the inside.