Potions // Maple Mocha

Today is a sick day. 

Thanks to the goodness of my coworkers and the insane amount of vitamins that Aric is making me take I am on my way out of it, but I still don't feel great. Although he is making me some soup as we speak (Which will be blogged about soon!), I wanted an autumn-y beverage to hold me over. 

Recently we bought a stove top espresso maker which we have both been loving. We got ours at our favorite store, T.J. Maxx. I don't know if it's an all over the country thing, but in our area there are tons of them in there. I got a 3 shot brewer for $7, so not too shabby! Also, it makes pretty darn good espresso. If you can't find one there though, there are tons on Amazon.com in around the same price range. 

Being in the coffee business, you can imagine we've had fun concocting drinks at home. Today's drink was a maple mocha! I made ours iced because I wanted something cold, but you could easily do it hot by heating milk on the stove, in the microwave, or steaming it if you have a steamer. (I would probably normally drink it hot actually...) Not only is this drink delicious and decadent, but I had everything to make it already in my pantry.  

-The run down-

-Make time: 3-5 minutes

-Difficulty level: Beginner

-Makes: 1 16oz cup

-Ingredients- 

-2 1/2 tbsp Unsweet dark cocoa powder

-2 tbsp pure maple syrup (Or more if you want it sweeter. I'm hot a huge fan of covering taste with sweet though, so this was perfect for me!) 

-Milk of  your choosing (I think I used about 6 oz of milk for this)

-Ice

-Coffee (I used Italian Roast from Starbucks because it was all I had handy, but I suggest anything that is a darker roast like this.)

*A quick disclaimer, you could absolutely just use brewed coffee of any method for this, but I'm going to explain brewing with a stove top espresso maker for this particular recipe.

-Directions-

-Get your coffee going! I have a glass top electric range, so I like to turn my burner on  high while I am working on getting my espresso maker prepped. If you are using a glass top range also you're going to want to use your smallest hot plate. Grind your coffee on a medium grind just like you would for your regular flat bottom coffee maker, I grind for 4 cups per glass of this I'm going to make since you want it more concentrated. 

-Set your espresso maker on the stove and wait for it to boil. If you have had your burner heating up like we did it should only take about 2 minutes to be finished. 

-Prep your glass! You're going to want 2 cups for this. Take a smaller cup (not the one you're going to be drinking out of) and add the mocha and maple, meanwhile take the 16oz cup and add ice to the top and pour your milk about half way. 

-Once your espresso maker (or any other form of coffee maker) is done, pour it into the smaller glass. Grab a fork or a small whisk and mix until you don't see chunks of cocoa. Then take the chocolatey mapley goodness and pour it over the ice into the other cup!

Et voila! You are done! You can top it with whipped cream and/or chocolate shavings if you want to be extra fancy to impress a special someone! Bonus points if you bring this along with breakfast in bed! 

Enjoy your potions! 

Happy sipping! 

Ashe + Aric