🍫Mexican Hot Chocolate: How to Make Abuelita Hot Chocolate

What is Mexican table chocolate, and what makes Abuelita special?

Abuelita is Mexican table chocolate, or chocolate de mesa, which is not the same thing as a chocolate bar. Table chocolate is traditionally made by grinding cacao with sugar and often cinnamon, then pressing it into tablets meant to be melted into milk or water. That's why it feels a little gritty when you bite into it, and why it has that sweet, cinnamon-forward flavor you'd know with your eyes closed.

Abuelita is one of the best-known table chocolate brands in Mexico, now made by Nestlé, and its packaging with the grandmother's face has been a pantry staple in Mexican homes on both sides of the border for years. It comes in tablets that break easily into pieces, and in a granulated version that's handier when you only want one cup.

How is Mexican hot chocolate different from regular hot cocoa?

If you grew up in the U.S., your first hot chocolate was probably from a packet, maybe with marshmallows on top. Mexican hot chocolate is a different story:

• •Cinnamon: the table chocolate already tastes of it, so you don't need to add any (though a cinnamon stick never hurts).
• •Texture: it's a little grainy and less creamy, and that's exactly how it should be.
• •Foam: it's whipped with a molinillo until a layer of foam forms on top, which many people consider the best part.
• •Water or milk: in many Mexican towns it's made with water, which lets the cacao come through.
• •Sweetness: the sugar is already in the tablet, so you usually don't add any more.

How do you make Abuelita hot chocolate with milk or water?

The recipe below is the classic: hot milk, chocolate broken into pieces, stir until it melts, then froth. Our suggested ratio is one tablet for about 4 cups of liquid. For a richer cup use a little less milk, and for a lighter one use more. There's no written rule; every household makes it the way the person at the stove likes it.

Whole milk makes it smooth and creamy. Half milk and half water makes it lighter and lets the cacao shine. Water only is how it's made in many Mexican towns; in Oaxaca, for example, chocolate de agua is a tradition of its own. The one thing to watch is that the milk doesn't boil hard or scorch on the bottom, so keep the heat at medium and stir often.

for about 4 cups of liquid, to start

1 tablet

on the stove, give or take

10 min

and frequent stirring, so it never boils hard

Medium heat

How do you froth Mexican hot chocolate without a molinillo?

A molinillo is a carved wooden whisk you spin by rubbing the handle between your palms with the head in the pot. Its loose wooden rings beat air into the chocolate, and that's where the foam comes from. Some people will tell you that hot chocolate without foam isn't really hot chocolate.

No molinillo? You can still get your foam. These work too:

• •Blender: a few seconds on low. Fill it only halfway and hold the lid down with a kitchen towel, since hot liquid pushes the lid up.
• •Balloon whisk: whisk hard right in the pot, tilting it slightly.
• •Electric milk frother: great for one or two mugs.

What variations of Mexican hot chocolate can you try?

Once you've got the basic version down, play around with it. Here are a few ways different families make it:

• •With water: the way it's made in many towns, lighter and more cacao-forward.
• •Thicker: dissolve a tablespoon of cornstarch in a little cold milk and stir it in at the end until it thickens. Use masa instead of cornstarch and you're making champurrado.
• •With a pinch of chile: a little ground chile de árbol or cayenne leaves a warm finish that recalls the cacao drinks of the past, which often included chile.
• •Extra cinnamon: simmer the milk with a cinnamon stick for a few minutes before adding the chocolate.
• •With coffee: half Abuelita, half café de olla, for long mornings.

What goes with Abuelita hot chocolate?

Hot chocolate calls for bread to dunk. A concha from the panadería is the classic, just like pan de muerto in November and the rosca de Reyes on January 6, which many families cut with a pot of hot chocolate on the table. If there's no Mexican bakery nearby, packaged pan dulce and Marías cookies will save the afternoon.

It also goes with tamales, though plenty of people reach for champurrado there, and with churros, which dunked in hot chocolate are another of winter's great joys. And for the kids, a mug of hot chocolate and a few cookies makes a whole afternoon snack.

Where can you buy Abuelita chocolate in the U.S.?

MexGoodies carries Abuelita chocolate in tablets, in two package sizes, and as granulated powder, all original products from Mexico, shipped anywhere in the U.S. in 3 to 7 days (Canada too). If you make hot chocolate often during the cold months, the bigger package will last you a lot of afternoons.

Frequently asked questions