Jacques Torres’ 10 Tips For The Perfect Cup Of Hot Chocolate

Nothing brings comfort quite like a steaming cup of rich chocolate folded into hot milk when the temperature drops. Hot chocolate is the quintessential cold-weather drink — a decadent beverage of childhood that is as nourishing for children as it is for adults. Because of the relatively small number of ingredients needed for hot chocolate and the presumed simplicity of the recipe, you could be forgiven for assuming that making hot chocolate is foolproof. But, in fact, to make a proper cup of hot chocolate, there are several essential pieces of culinary wisdom to keep in mind.

To help you prepare your own sumptuously rich hot chocolate at home, we turned to the maker of one of our favorite cups of hot chocolate in New York, the illustrious Jacques Torres, also known as Mr. Chocolate. The celebrated French pastry chef and master chocolatier, with a flagship New York chocolate shop and chocolate factory, serves one of the city’s finest hot chocolates and has signature hot cocoa mixes to prepare at home — which made the number one spot in our ranking of hot cocoa mixes. Torres walks us through his perfected technique for making hot chocolate, including his chocolate of choice, his preferred method of preparation, and his favorite flavor addition. 

Jacques Torres chooses his words about hot chocolate carefully because he understands that language matters — that the names we call our culinary creations can signal the ingredients we use within them, their country of origin, and the overall quality of what we’re preparing. When it comes to hot chocolate, the beverage in question, Torres makes it clear that there’s a significant distinction between the drink that is often thoughtlessly referred to with the interchangeable names “hot chocolate” and “hot cocoa.” 

According to Torres, the difference between hot chocolate and hot cocoa comes down to whether you use cocoa powder or chocolate. For a drink to be considered hot chocolate, Torres says it must use “finished chocolate — real chocolate, not just cocoa powder.” He explains the reason he feels so strongly about this distinction has to do with the way solid chocolate is transformed when heated. “Hot chocolate goes through a process where you get rid of all the unpleasant flavor. You really work hard on the flavor of your hot chocolate. When you use cocoa powder, then you don’t go through that process. So it’s more of an unfinished product.”

Hot chocolate isn’t simply a part of Torres’ professional life. The drink is deeply personal to him. He shares: “I grew up in the south of France and I recall … First I was riding a bicycle, then I was driving a moped, then I had a motorcycle. And in the winter, I’d remember to stop at salon de thé, or tea place, and ask for hot chocolate just to get warm … it’s not cold in the south of France, but people don’t know how to dress like in New York. We don’t layer. So when it’s cold, we get really cold, and the hot chocolate really warms you from the inside.”

Those who care deeply about hot chocolate know that the drink’s mouthfeel can immediately reveal its quality. If you take a sip and are met with chocolate so watered down you can barely taste any flavor, then you likely have a texture problem. To achieve a rich and velvety mouthfeel, Jacques Torres uses one surprising yet affordable ingredient: milk powder. 

Torres believes you should always keep milk powder in your pantry because the shelf-stable ingredient has the ability to transform everything from desserts to nourishing beverages. In Torres’s native France, it is traditional to make hot chocolate using a combination of cream and milk. He recognizes that not everyone has heavy cream on hand, but that doesn’t mean your hot chocolate has to suffer. “It’s difficult for people to go back to the supermarket,” he explains. “To go back and buy some cream, then they have some cream left over. It’s not convenient.” His solution to creating a similar texture without the need for perishable luxury ingredients is to use milk powder. 

“Milk powder is pretty close to cream when you add liquid,” Torres notes. “It’s like having a little bit of cream in it. Between the milk powder and the milk … you’re going to have something a little bit like cream.” The milk powder adds thickness to the hot chocolate, deepens the flavor of the chocolate, and enhances the overall taste.

One of the most important decisions when making hot chocolate at home is deciding what kind of milk to use. Back in the day, there were only three accessible types of milk to choose from: whole, skim, and 2%. But the current culinary landscape is wildly diverse. We’re living through a renaissance for milk and nondairy milk products. Shoppers across the country can find several refined dairy options and dairy alternatives at upscale grocers and big box stores alike. Plant-based alternatives, which are exploding in popularity, include oat milk, almond milk, pistachio milk, and cashew milk. 

While Jacques Torres wants you to use the type of milk that best meets your dietary and lifestyle needs, if you have the option, he recommends sticking with the classics, specifically whole milk. Part of his rationale for using whole milk at his chocolate shop and within the recipe of his signature hot chocolate mixes is prioritizing convenience and ease. “My guess is a lot of people have whole milk,” he tells us. “When you have a kid, you have whole milk in your refrigerator. So we base our hot chocolate on whole milk.” The other part, which for our purposes is a bit more important, comes down to taste. “Whole milk will give you a little bit more creaminess,” he explains. “The only thing that added fat is going to do [is enhance] the hot chocolate.”

Now, we turn our attention to hot chocolate preparation. If you’re making your hot chocolate using a hot chocolate mix, you’re likely heating your liquid of choice either in the microwave, on the stove, or in an electric kettle, and then simply pouring it into your prepackaged cocoa powder. Jacques Torres argues that the drink we just described is actually hot cocoa, not hot chocolate, and that hot chocolate requires a transformation of your chocolate during the cooking process. But the chocolate isn’t the only ingredient Torres has specific cooking instructions for.

“I like to actually bring my milk to a boil,” Torres tells us. “You want your milk to be hot enough for the chocolate to melt … put your chocolate in it and then mix it, and then bring it back to a boil again.” The reason for this process has to do with what happens to the ingredients during the boiling. He explains: “That’s going to cook all the sugar — everything that’s inside the chocolate. Everything is going to really melt and come together with the boiling process.” 

Torres cautions that not boiling your ingredients is one of the key mistakes made with homemade hot chocolate. “If you don’t boil it, the product doesn’t really come all together, and you can have some deposit on the bottom.”

While hot chocolate is considered a sweet treat by many, Jacques Torres thinks you can enjoy the drink without overdoing the sweetness. In fact, he stresses the importance of focusing on the quality of the chocolate rather than infusing the beverage with an excess of different types of sugar. When preparing hot chocolate at home, Torres omits additional sugar altogether. “I will not add sugar to it,” he tells us. “There’s no reason. It’s sweet enough. To tell you the truth, I don’t like when people add on sweeteners.” 

At first, it might seem surprising that a famous chocolatier doesn’t care for sugar, but when we asked Torres to explain his rationale, it made perfect culinary sense. His deep understanding of chocolate is the reason he encourages home cooks to avoid diluting the flavor. If you’re thinking that hot chocolate without any sugar doesn’t sound very delicious, fear not; your hot chocolate will still be sweet. “Remember that chocolate — any chocolate, 72% chocolate — contains sugar,” Torres reminds us. Because of the sugar already within the chocolate, Torres prefers to emphasize the chocolate flavor rather than adding any more sugar.

Jacques Torres wants you to use only quality ingredients when preparing hot chocolate. “If the chocolate doesn’t taste good, whatever you make is not going to taste good. You need to have good ingredients. That’s one of the most important things in cooking,” he explains. To Torres, quality is synonymous with the word real. During a period in the food scene where there is an excess of alternative products, including nondairy milk and nonanimal meat, “real” is less of a focus for many consumers, but Torres believes it is essential.

Instead of using ingredients made to taste or look like their authentic counterparts, Torres prefers to stick with the classics. “Where I grew up,” Torres tells us. “There was milk, there was cream, and there was water. There was nothing else. There wasn’t any [plant-based] milk. Those things don’t exist. Those things are not real. Almond milk is not real; I’m sorry. Any of that fake milk doesn’t make sense to me.” 

Of course, he acknowledges that using dairy milk is not an option for some because of dietary preferences or concerns about animal welfare, but he still would not recommend using plant-based milk. “I am a purist, so if I don’t want milk in my hot chocolate, I will make it with water.” If you’re following a plant-based diet, he suggests: “Use a vegan chocolate and mix it with water. It’s excellent. This is the Mayan way. The Mayans used to mix water and chocolate, and it worked.”

Of all the nuggets of hot chocolate wisdom Jacques Torres imparted us with, the decision to use chocolate instead of cocoa powder was the one that was most vital to him. To understand why he feels so strongly that using cocoa powder significantly reduces the quality of your hot chocolate, he walked us through the differences between how cocoa powder and chocolate are made. 

“To make chocolate from scratch,” Torres explains. “You roast cacao beans, you grind the beans, and you add sugar.” But the work doesn’t end there. “There is not enough cocoa butter naturally for the chocolate to really melt completely in your mouth,” Torres tells us. “So what do we do? We add cocoa butter. Cocoa butter comes from cacao beans. It’s the fat of the cacao beans. So you raise the fat content. The mouthfeel is going to be a lot better with a little bit more cocoa butter.” 

Now, what about cocoa powder? “Cocoa powder is a byproduct of making cocoa butter,” Torres shares. “When you compress cacao beans, what comes out is cocoa butter. What’s going to stay is the cocoa powder. You have a product that’s not really finished. It’s not real chocolate.” To turn cocoa powder into a nourishing beverage, you add milk and sugar. But Torres insists: “Then you have a hot cocoa. It’s not hot chocolate.” 

For the same reason Torres recommends not adding additional sugar to your hot chocolate, he encourages using chocolate that is no less than 60% dark. When preparing hot chocolate for himself, Torres has an even more precise percentage of chocolate he prefers. “I like to be around 66% cocoa content. So it’s a bittersweet chocolate. It’s not too bitter, but it has that little kick.” 

Even if you like lighter-tasting chocolate, Torres suggests sticking with 60% chocolate rather than using more milk-forward chocolate, which contains a higher quantity of sugar. To mediate the richness of the chocolate based on personal preference, rather than using a lighter chocolate percentage, Torres recommends adding more milk to your hot chocolate if you like a lighter flavor. It all comes down to personal chocolate taste. 

According to Torres, although many chocolatiers favor chocolate from Africa, he believes the best chocolate comes from Mexico and South America, specifically Venezuela. “You get a little bit more floral flavor,” he explains. The form of chocolate Torres uses for hot chocolate is pistole pieces, a type of flat chocolate chip that melts more quickly, easing the velvety texture of his hot chocolate.

While Jacques Torres is a purist who doesn’t like to add bells and whistles to his hot chocolate, he has a soft spot for whipped cream. There are, of course, many different ways to make whipped cream, with some recipes including flavorings and sweeteners. It will likely come as no surprise to learn that Torres, who doesn’t like his hot chocolate too sweet, prefers a more traditional preparation for his whipped cream. “I will not add anything to [my whipped cream],” he tells us. “No vanilla, no sugar, and especially no syrup, nothing like that.” 

He even has a desired whipped cream texture. “I’m very specific. Why? It’s because I want the whipped cream to be very soft, so soft peaks and unsweet.” That softness pairs well with the thickness of the hot chocolate, balancing out its depth with a light infusion of cream. 

Torres believes whipped cream is an essential part of the hot chocolate drinking experience. “Whipped cream is just to bring a little bit of creaminess [to the hot chocolate],” he explains. “When you drink it, the whipped cream is going to hit your top lip. The bottom lip is going to be warmed by the hot chocolate, and the two mixed together are going to hit your tongue, and that’s where the magic is.”

One of the wonders of hot chocolate is how well the beloved drink goes with specialty flavors. Although Jacques Torres believes a classic cup of hot chocolate doesn’t need anything additional to make it delicious, he does have a favorite trick for infusing extra flavor if you’re looking for a twist. His go-to hot chocolate concoction? Candied oranges. 

“Not orange flavor,” Torres explains. “I use candied orange skin that I smash and put inside my hot chocolate, and that’s the deal. That works very well.” If you want to emulate this hot chocolate upgrade at home, Torres recommends adding the candied orange just after you boil the chocolate into the milk. “If you smash [the candied oranges], just put a couple of spoonfuls in. You’re not going to melt it, you’re just going to have some little pieces, but that brings so much flavor. It’s delicious.” 

Pairing chocolate and fruit together is a time-honored tradition in the world of sweets. If candied orange isn’t your thing, Torres also recommends adding a cracked candy cane during the winter holidays or experimenting with spices for a little heat. His preferred spice blend includes ancho, chile, allspice, and cinnamon.