Hot Chocolate (Out of Season Cooking)

Today it was 25ºC outside and not the ideal weather for a cup of steaming hot chocolate drink. Nevertheless, that was our breakfast with freshly made churros (Spanish doughnut sticks for the uninitiated) from down the street. It's probably one of the last chances before the weather turns really beastly hot, so why not. For the same reason we're eating hearty stews to clear out space in the freezer and cupboards. Anyway, to the recipe. Dead simple really, but lifts your average chocolate drink up a few nudges.

Ingredients:
200ml cream
200ml milk
1 vanilla pod, cut lengthwise
1/2 chilli cut lengthwise
Small stick of cinnamon
2 pieces of orange peel
150g good quality dark chocolate

Scrape out the seeds of the vanilla pod, add them along with the pod itself, the chilli, cinnamon and orange peel. Bring to a simmer, turn off the heat and let it infuse 10 minutes. Meanwhile chop the dark chocolate finely.

Fish out the chilli, orange peel, cinnamon and vanilla pod. Add the chocolate to the still warm milk. Bring it back to a near simmer while stirring. You don't want it to boil, just enough to make all the chocolate melt.

Drink on its own if you can't find any churros.