The Gas Station Item You Never Considered Making Hot Chocolate With (Until Now)

When the days grow short and the air gets crisp, Americans throughout the northern regions of the United States scramble to trade T-shirts for flannels and easy, three-ingredient whipped lemonade for the steaming comfort of warm fall drinks. Though many people's thoughts turn instantly to apple cider, there's a subset of loyal dessert lovers who will always choose hot chocolate over every other warm beverage. We have to agree that it's an elite choice — after all, drinkable chocolate garnished with dreamy whipped cream and sugary marshmallows is hard to pass up.

The only issue with this particular choice is that many popular hot chocolate mixes are pretty disappointing. Mixes that aren't too sugary are often bitter or taste like preservatives, while even the better blends are still sorely lacking in pure chocolate flavor. While the obvious solution may seem to be making your own hot chocolate mix, getting the ratios of sugar to cocoa powder to powdered milk can be a difficult process. Instead, we suggest trying an unusual but undeniably delicious option for making hot chocolate: ordinary gas station chocolate bars.

The next time you need to fill your tank, be sure to snag a Hershey's Special Dark or Cadbury Dairy Milk bar along with a pint of whole milk. Whisked together over low heat, these two ingredients become much more than the sum of their parts, forming an unbelievably rich and creamy beverage shockingly similar to French or Italian sipping chocolate. After perfecting this inexpensive hack, you may just abandon powdered mix forever.

The reason this two-ingredient recipe is so successful is that everything you need is contained within each ingredient. The chocolate bar contains the perfect balance of cocoa, sugar, and emulsifiers, while the milk is basically creamy fat suspended in water. Warmed together in a saucepan over low heat — or, even better, inside a double boiler — all of these elements come together to form a smooth, rich liquid. The only thing you really need is patience, as it's crucial that the mixture never boils, as that would scorch the chocolate and make it taste bitter.

Otherwise, making this cold weather treat is fairly straightforward — simply chop the chocolate into small pieces and add it to the milk with your pan over low heat, whisking fairly constantly until everything is evenly mixed, then pour directly from the pan into your favorite mug. Generally speaking, a ratio of 2 ounces of chocolate to 1 cup of milk per person should be just about perfect. For example, if you're making this recipe for two people, you'll need 4 ounces of chocolate and 2 cups of milk.

Of course, like any good hack, the best part is making it your own. There are lots of genius ways to make your hot chocolate taste like restaurant-quality cocoa, from simply adding whipped cream to pumping up the flavor with cinnamon or peppermint extract, or even snagging a package of soft caramels from the gas station to melt into the mixture.