There is a version of chai that lives in a paper cup, and there is the version someone makes for you on a slow morning, with the kitchen smelling like ginger and cinnamon before anyone has said a word. This recipe is the second kind, with whole cacao in place of the tea.
Sixteen seconds in the reel, about ten minutes in real life. Here is everything that happens in that pan.
What you need (one cup)
- 1 cup milk of your choice (whole milk and oat milk froth best)
- 2 tablespoons (25 g) Alma cacao, the whole paste in small pieces
- 3 thin slices of fresh ginger
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 2 whole cloves
- 1 teaspoon honey, or to taste
That is the whole list. The spice is real spice, steeped rather than poured from a syrup bottle, and the chocolate is single-origin ceremonial cacao from Peru, pressed whole, so the cacao butter is still in it. That fat is what makes the drink thick and lets the foam hold.
How to make it
- Steep the spices. Pour the milk into a small pan with the ginger, cinnamon stick and cloves. Warm it on low for five minutes. Do not let it boil.
- Strain. Pour the milk through a fine sieve into a bowl, then back into the pan. The ginger has done its work.
- Melt the cacao. Add the cacao pieces to the warm milk and stir until nothing is left on the spoon. Keep the heat low. Whole cacao melts rather than dissolves, so give it a minute.
- Sweeten. A spoon of honey, stirred in off the heat.
- Froth. Twenty seconds with a handheld frother, or shake it in a jar with the lid on tight.
- Pour it slow. Into a clear glass if you have one, so you can watch the foam settle.
Why it froths like that
Whole cacao is roughly half cacao butter. When you melt it into warm milk and froth it, that fat carries into the foam and holds it, the way it does in a proper hot chocolate. Powder that has had the butter pressed out will not do this. The longer explanation is in why cacao butter matters.
Three ways to change it
- Stronger chai. Add two cracked cardamom pods and a few black peppercorns to the steep.
- Iced. Steep and strain as above, melt the cacao, then cool it and pour over ice. The method in iced ceremonial cacao keeps it smooth.
- Fall on fall. Swap the honey for a spoon of pumpkin purée and a pinch of nutmeg, like the pumpkin spice ceremonial cacao.
A note on the cacao
This works with any whole cacao paste, and it works best with the one in the video. Alma Cacao is a single-origin cacao from native communities of the Peruvian Amazon, roasted and pressed whole in small batches. Nothing is added and nothing is pressed out. One pound makes 18 cups at two tablespoons each.
Make it for someone this week. The pan smells like a holiday before the drink is even ready, and that is most of the point.
