Almond Mocha

This one afternoon I was craving a coffee, and a sweet one, but was definitely not up for braving the torrential rain outside to get one. And that is when I was struck by the idea: homemade Almond Mocha!

I’ve been crazy over nuts for a while now, so I’m never short of a decent supply – in a natural, non-processed form, as well as those incorporated into a chocolate bar. On the other hand, the Alpro Almond Milk visited my household for the first time, and I was thrilled to learn it was even tastier (and had less calories!) than my long term favourite soy milk. In the end, the concept was pretty much simple maths but the result was rather unexpected.

First of all, I put a few chunks of an almond chocolate bar on the bottom of a glass, added a splash of milk and microwaved for just over 2mins to soften the chocolate which I then muddled into a paste.

I heated 200ml of Alpro Almond Milk below the boiling point. I can’t call myself lucky enough to own an espresso machine – I do own one, but it has never impressed me enough to use it on a regular basis – at least not when I was hoping for a decent coffee; however, the steamer (when I managed to make it work) was a useful feature, and I used it this time on the hot milk to produce a slight foam on top.

That done, I added a sachet of VIA Colombia  – Starbucks’s soluble coffee that I happened to have in the house, but whose many equivalents I have spotted in the supermarkets recently – to the chocolate paste, stirred that slightly (the beauty of these coffees is that they seem to dissolve in everything) and topped up with the hot milk. Sprinkled some chocolate on top, and voila! One scrumptious Almond Mocha served (mind the bits of almonds that prove its authenticity!)