The term “Mexican chocolate” can refer to many different types of chocolate they all have one thing in common: they’re spicy. Mexican chocolate, in just about every form, is flavored with a variety of spices, and you’ll find flavors that include cinnamon and a variety of ground, dried chilies to add some heat to the mix. I’ve had it in brownies and desserts, but Mexican chocolate makes a fabulous hot chocolate and you can find it on the menus at many higher end coffee shops. It’s also easy to use Mexican chocolate to spice up your drinks at home. You can buy bars of the chocolate at many regular grocery stores these days and grind them up to stir into hot chocolate. I like to make my own mix and use it for drinks like this sweet-spicy Mexican Chocolate Cappuccino.

The mix I make includes cocoa powder, shaved dark chocolate (for extra richness), sugar, vanilla, cinnamon and a generous pinch of ground chipotle or pasila chilies. Cayenne pepper can work well, too, but should be used more sparingly as it doesn’t seem to blend quite as well with the chocolate. I’ll make a big batch and keep it in a ziploc bag for when I’m in the mood for some kicked up hot chocolate, but you can mix it up a drink at a time.

For the cappuccino, I combine the mexican chocolate mix with coffee and whisk it very well, then top it with steamed milk. Sprinkle some on top for garnish at your own risk, as those chilies can offer some real heat when they touch the tip of your tongue!

Mexican Chocolate Cappuccino
4-6oz hot, brewed coffee
2 tbsp cocoa powder
1/2 oz (1 tbsp) dark chocolate, shaved
3 tbsp sugar, or to taste
1/3 tsp ground cinnamon
pinch ground chipotle or pasila peppers
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
steamed milk

Pour coffee into a large mug.
Add cocoa powder, dark chocolate, sugar, cinnamon, chilies and vanilla to coffee and whisk well, until the chocolate and sugar are completely dissolved. Add more sugar or chili to taste.
Top with steamed milk (I usually make this cappuccino quite wet) and dust with cinnamon to serve.

Serves 1

The Pumpkin Spice Latte is a hugely popular seasonal offering at Starbucks, and many other coffee shops offer similar drinks during the fall and winter. All of these pumpkin spice drinks tend to be made with a thick pumpkin syrup that has the consistency of caramel sauce. I’ve experimented with coming up with a homemade version of this syrup, but have found that I get the best flavor when I simply add a dash of pumpkin pie spice – a mixture of cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg – to my coffee drinks and skip the actual pumpkin. To add back some of the richness lost by omitting the pumpkin syrup, I decided to add chocolate syrup to a drink the other day and created a Chocolate Pumpkin Spice Latte.

The latte starts with a shot or two of espresso that is stirred together with some chocolate syrup and a generous pinch of pumpkin pie spice. You want to use enough spice to get the flavor, but not so much that you’ll have a block of it at the bottom of your cup. I steamed some chocolate milk and poured it on top of the drink (adding chocolate sauce to the hot milk will lose you a few bubbles, but will keep your steam wand clean), then finished the whole thing off with a drizzle of chocolate syrup and a sprinkle of spice.

You can also make this with coffee and milk that has been heated in the microwave if you don’t have an espresso machine. Put the hot milk into a small bowl and beat it with a whisk for a minute or two to foam it up for a more latte-like effect. And, as always, feel free to increase the amount of chocolate to taste or to add some sugar to the espresso for a sweeter finished product.

Chocolate Pumpkin Spice Latte
2 oz espresso
8-oz steamed milk
4 tbsp chocolate sauce (such as Hershey’s), plus more for topping
approx 1/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice, plus more for topping

In a tall latte glass, whisk together espresso and 2 tbsp chocolate sauce.
Stir remaining 2 tbsp chocolate sauce into hot steamed milk. Pour milk on top of espresso, then drizzle with extra chocolate syrup and a sprinkle of pumpkin pie spice or cinnamon

For a coffee lover, Pocket Coffee is just about as good as it gets when it comes to chocolates. Pocket Coffee is a type of chocolate made by Ferrero, an Italian company that is better known in the US for their hazelnut filled Ferrero Rocher chocolates. The candies have a chocolate shell that surrounds a rich liquid espresso center that really delivers a caffeine punch. A very thin, crisp sugar shell keeps the espresso contained within the chocolate. I first heard about these on Candyblog, and spotted them myself in a local Cost Plus World Market a few months back. I’ve been buying them ever since.

The liquid center has a fantastic coffee flavor that I really like. The sugar that sweetened it gives it its syrupy consistency and seems to help it to blend well with the chocolate shell. It also adds an interesting textural element to the candy, which makes it seem a little more special. Overall? Pocket Coffee is delicious and probably one of the best coffee+chocolate combinations I’ve had – not to mention that it was one of the most unusual.

These candies do use real espresso and do contain caffeine. Apparently, 3 of these is about the equivalent of one shot of espresso. At that rate, I wouldn’t be using them for energy over regular coffee, but they are delicious and the added bonus of caffeine is not a bad thing to keep in mind when you are looking for a pick me up. I keep a small stash in my desk drawer just in case.

As much as I enjoy a good cup of black coffee, I also love topping a cup of coffee or a shot of espresso off with a dollop of steamed milk or whipped cream and a sprinkle of cinnamon or cocoa powder to add a little extra flavor and just generally dress up the drink. It is one of those little touches that somehow makes the drink seem fancier and me feel like slowing down to enjoy it – as I would do at a coffee shop, but might not necessarily do at home. It was clear that the new Trader Joe’s Sugar, Chocolate and Coffee Bean Grinder is designed to make it easy to add this sort of coffee shop flare to your coffee drinks at home. The grinder looks like a pepper mill, but is filled with white and brown sugar, chocolate and coffee beans. A few twists of the cap and you have a sweet sprinkling on top of your drink! The mix is great, and because it comes out of a pepper grinder, everything has a very coarse texture to it, so you get both an attractive look and a lot of flavor from just a small amount of this mix. The sugar crystals are crunchy, the coffee is subtle and the chocolate just leaves a hint of richness on your tongue as it melts. I’m keeping mine by the coffee maker.

TJ’s also recommends putting this on buttered toast, ice cream or other desserts. I can vouch for how delicious it is on top of buttered toast, and I’ll definitely be up for experimenting with it on other desserts that need a little spike of coffee, chocolate and sugar to dress them up.

Most of the time I serve my cakes with coffee, I don’t necessarily put coffee into the cakes. Coffee can be a difficult flavor to work with when it comes to dessert because it can be fairly aggressive with the other flavors. When I was putting together this Mocha Bundt Cake, however, I was set on creating a coffee cake that actually tastes like coffee. My solution was to use chocolate to balance the coffee flavor and give it a nice, rich base to sit on. I used a lot of instant espresso powder (as well as some strong, brewed coffee) to infuse the cake with coffee. In the end, it turned out to be exactly the cake I had in mind: moist, intense and with a great coffee flavor. Get the recipe at Baking Bites.