Now straight away you'll be thinking back to Instint mint coffee and the original mint cake principle kind of worked, but my hot chocolate wasn't quite right after that, something about peppermint oil and sugar being in instant hot chocolate didn't add up very well.

Now this technique is designed specifically for instant hot chocolate (the one with water) and before I get a tonne of comments on how it's not as good it has come a long way, plus when on earth is anyone going to be in the mood for burning pans and milk at the same time as hot chocolate?

Step 1: Tools and Materials.

You'll need:

- Tools
- A cup
- A kettle
- A spoon

- Materials
- Instant hot chocolate, I suggest Cadbury's or galaxy, they seems to work well for this
- Water
- Peppermint tea bags, you could use loose stuff but leaves and chocolate slurry wouldn't be a pretty sight in the bottom of the cup...

Step 2: Making the Tea...

Boil the kettle up and make the tea as usual, leave a little room in the cup and don't brew it to uber strong levels.

While you're waiting take the time to do something, maybe prepare some biscuits or find some junk food to enjoy with your hot chocolate.

Step 3: Chocolate Addition...

This step becomes inherently tricky when you realise that the powder can float, it's easier here to spoon in dollops of powder and then sink them by putting the spoon on top of them...

I still just pour the powder on then do the sinking but it's up to yourself, for those that use spoons for intended purposes you may find it difficult to add reasonable amounts by pouring.

Step 4: Stir It Up for a While.

It'll take a fair bit of stirring to get the chocolate in right but persevere, it's worth it in the end.

One suggestion I will make is that using real sugar and not sweetener will make the hot chocolate taste much more real and will bring the mint out nicely.

I'll outline the first method I tried based on the minty coffee 'ible I did in the next step. In my own opinion it didn't turn out as nicely but you may prefer it...

Step 5: Original Method.

The original version I tried worked like so:

- Ingredients
- Instant hot chocolate
- A few small chunks of Kendal mint cake
- A fair whack of sugar to compensate for the bitterness

It's definitely simpler to make, all you need to do is drop the mint cake in to the bottom of the cup and break it up with a spoon, add the hot chocolate and stir.

Step 6: Trying This With Milk.

If you wanted to try this with making real hot chocolate you could go about it two ways.

- One would be to throw a peppermint teabag in to the milk while warming it, this could be a minor issue at times as milk is a nuisance to heat up without disasters happening anyway.

- A much simpler method would be to purchase an aero (mint) bar at the shop and throw a square in with the normal chocolate, the reason aero is good is that it's not too overpowering in minty goodness and the bubbles do make it melt quite effectively, which is less effort at the end of the day.

Overall I'd say the end result of this experiment was a great success, granted I had some weird ideas that didn't quite work out, one thing I must say is that this really beats that funny tasting mint stuff you get in the shops, when they finish with it, there's a vague semblance of mint and chocolate but no more than the vague semblance between you and the inbred mutt in the corner. ^{Dogboy, if you read this that wasn't a crack at you.}