Hot cocoa

Here's another recipe that I can never remember.  About a month ago Benjamin wanted hot cocoa.  I remember making it last year and that it was easy.  I also remembered making the syrup first then adding the milk.  I looked all over pinterest and do you think I could find what I was looking for?  NO.  I finally found a couple, but all used differing amounts of cocoa, sugar and milk.  I ended up remembering it may have been actually on the cocoa container and lo and behold it was.  However, that recipe was on the higher end of sugar.  I mixed and combined a few and made something up.  Thought I printed it, wrote it down, something, but alas when Benjamin wanted hot cocoa tonight do you think I could find it?!?!  You guessed it, NO again.  Went through the same story as last time but a bit quicker because I had pinned a few recipes last month.  I still ended up combining a few, so here is what we did and I loved it.

Ingredients:

• 4 1/3 cup milk (divided)
• heaping 1/3 cup sugar  (1/3 is probably fine, I was just reducing and a bit worried of it being bitter.  And by heaping, I don't mean overflowing, just a bit full.)
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• couple grinds of salt
• splash of vanilla (I splashed a bit more than I wanted to today, but it sure was good!)

Directions

In a heavy saucepan, combine sugar, cocoa, salt, and 1/3 cup milk.  (Most recipes online and the recipe on the box of cocoa call for water here, but I like extra milk.  Just be sure to not keep the heat too high, and to stir constantly if using milk.)  Bring to a boil and boil stirring constantly for 2 min.  This should be nice and syrupy after the 2 minutes.  Stir in the 4 cups milk and vanilla and heat to desired temperature.  (Here again recipes tell you to bring to just below a boil but not to boil it.  I just warm it up until it is a good drinking temp.  If you mess up and get it too hot, you can always add a dab of cream to cool it down.  We ended up doing that this evening.  No one complained. )