I have been on a search for a homemade hot chocolate mix recipe that doesn’t use non-dairy creamer for years.  I finally realized that I could use dry milk instead of  non-dairy creamer and get a wholesome hot chocolate mix for a fraction of the cost of store bought.  Add in a little homemade caramel sauce and we have a definite winner!

The first problem I had was finding dry whole milk to use in the mix. Most dry milk in the grocery store or even on-line is  no-fat milk.  I wanted the hot chocolate to be nice and rich so I really wanted to use whole fat dry milk, but I couldn’t find it anywhere.  I finally went on-line to search for it and discovered Nestle’s Nido – a dry whole milk product that looks like it is distributed mostly in Latin and southern America.  I couldn’t find it in the store because I’d been looking in the baking aisle with the other dry milk powders, but I finally found it in the aisle with other Mexican foods.

I had to give this recipe a few tries to get the ratios worked out correctly. There is a delicate balance of sugar to cocoa powder and I had a hard time not getting the hot chocolate too sweet. Feel free to mess around with it to get the exact ration you prefer.  Next time I make a batch of this I will blend it in a blender or food processor after mixing everything together.  I think that will help the mix turn in to more of a powder like the store bought packets.