Gramma's Hot Cocoa - an experiment

You are looking at three types of Hot Cocoa.  The darkest one on the left is the Alton Brown recipe I made not long ago.  The top and bottom are two I just did an experiment with.  Well, here's how it started.  I posted my recipe for Alton Brown's Hot Cocoa and my Aunt mentioned that my gramma used to make hot cocoa with just three simple ingredients.  It intrigued me because 1) all my grammas recipes make me happy 2) you can make this by the mug instead of making a huge batch of it that you store in your pantry 3) I happened to have all the needed ingredients on hand.

So, there I was....snowed in at home, child was up taking her nap....and so I said to myself - self I said, why don't you whip up a cup of hot cocoa - gramma style.  So I emailed my dad and asked  him if he remembered the recipe because my Aunt thought it was 1 tsp. cocoa powder, 2 tsp sugar, and a little canned milk.  My dad emailed me back saying he wasn't sure exactly if it was evaporated milk or sweetened condensed milk.  I felt compelled to find out! COMPELLED I SAY!

Above you can see my testing station.  Sugar, cocoa, and two types of milk.

Into each mug I put 1 tsp. of cocoa powder. I should mention, this was just regular cocoa powder and not the Dutch Processed kind.

Into each cup I put 2 tsp. sugar.

Preparing to add the different types of milk.

One cup gets a tiny bit of the evaporated milk...

the other gets a little sweetened condensed milk...

Make a paste.

Paste again

My instructions said to fill it up about 1/3 of the way with more canned milk - so I did.  This is obviously the evaporated milk version.

Topped off with hot water.

I only added about another Tbsp of sweetened condensed milk before realizing that it would be WAY too sweet if I added more....

So I used regular 2% milk to fill it 1/3 full.

Then topped it off with hot water.

So here's my conclusion.

the evaporated milk version was much creamier and sweeter and therefore I preferred it.
The condensed milk version needed another tsp of sugar to make it sweet enough and then it was very tasty and much easier to make since it's not as thick.

I compared these two against the Alton Brown cocoa mix I posted a while ago and decided that its sort of what you're in the mood for.  the Alton Brown cocoa is very rich, deep chocolate taste. Great for dark chocolate lovers.
The other two were made with regular unsweetened cocoa powder and therefore resembled more of a milk chocolate taste.  I did prefer the SCM version because of it's creaminess but would probably end up making the EM version sooner because its much quicker.

I hope you've enjoyed my experiment.  It was so much fun that I'm going to have to look around for other things to test.

Gramma's Hot Cocoa

1 tsp regular unsweetened cocoa powder
3 tsp sugar
1/4 - 1/2 cup of evaporated milk (depending on your mug size)

 OR

1 tsp regular unsweetened cocoa power
2 tsp sugar (I honestly think you can skip this here, the SCM is sweet enough)
2 Tbsp sweetened condensed milk

Add the cocoa to your mug and then the sugar (or not), then just enough of whichever canned milk you choose to make a paste.  If you're using the evaporated milk - add enough to fill about 1/3 of the cup.  If you're using SCM use regular milk to make 1/3 of the cup. Top these off with hot water and mix well.