Red Velvet Hot Chocolate and Almond Witch Finger Cookies
Happy Halloween! This October has been packed—between making moldy tarts and floating eyeballs, naked spiderweb cakes and sparkling devil’s food cakes, pumpkin patch cookies and pumpkin-shaped cakes, it’s been a month absolutely full of spooky sweets and ghoulish goodies. So what could possibly be left to make at this late date?
Four words for you: Red Velvet Hot Chocolate. Four more words for you: make it right now!
I wanted to save an easy recipe for last. This is one you can whip up in just a few minutes, and enjoy it while watching a scary movie, or warm up with it after a chilly trick or treating session. I’m also including a recipe for almond witch finger cookies, because you haven’t lived until you’ve dipped an edible finger in a glass of blood-red chocolate milk. (Tell me again how Halloween became a children’s holiday? This is gruesome stuff!)
Let’s tackle the red velvet hot chocolate first. I looked at a few recipes online (because the golden rule of food blogging is that if you have an original idea, you’re sure to find that it’s been done by a dozen other people before you), and was disheartened to see that they all appeared to be regular hot chocolate with red food coloring added. That might be red hot chocolate, but it’s certainly not red velvet hot chocolate.
To me, the signature characteristics of red velvet cake are the buttermilk and light cocoa flavor of the cake. Without the buttermilk in the batter it’s just a boring, not-very-chocolatey cake, so I wanted to find a way to incorporate the unique buttermilk/cocoa flavor into the drink. Rather than using actual buttermilk (because that sounded iffy) I blended a little cream cheese into the milk before heating it. Voila! The milk was thicker and richer, and it had a flavor that called to mind not only the red velvet cake, but also the signature cream cheese frosting!
The cream cheese isn’t overwhelming—I only use 3 oz for 20 oz of milk—so it’s not like you’re drinking frosting here. But it does add a wonderful texture and just a hint of cream cheese flavor that blends nicely with the semi-sweet chocolate. Overall the hot chocolate’s flavor is complex and not too sweet, perfect for enjoying in small sips throughout the night.
As for the red color, well, you should keep scrolling if you’re not a food coloring fan. If natural coloring is your thing I’m sure you could use beet-based color, or something equally virtuous, but I went for good old fashioned Americolor Super Red gel. A few squirts of gel turned my dark hot chocolate into a burgundy masterpiece. If you want a bright red color, you can replace some or all of the dark chocolate with milk chocolate, or swap in some white chocolate instead. I thought the brownish-red did an admirable job of imitating blood…a Halloween drink necessity!
As for the witch finger cookies, well, I just couldn’t resist making these Halloween classics! My version is sort of an almond sugar cookie, with almond meal and almond extract. They’re soft and tender, with a bit of a crunch on the outside that works well with the crunchy, blood-red almond fingernail. These do require some chilling time if you want them to hold their shape, so they’re not a great last-minute recipe, but if you have a few hours, make them to dunk in your red velvet hot chocolate!
Biscotti and coffee is soooo last year. Now it’s all about finger cookies and red velvet hot chocolate. Get on this train!
Happy Halloween, friends! Have fun and stay safe. If you’re looking for more inspiration, here are a few of my favorite Halloween desserts I’ve posted this year:
Spiderweb Naked Red Velvet Cake . Floating Eyeball Jello Shots . Moldy Matcha Chocolate Tarts
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