Creamy Crock Pot Hot Chocolate--Regular and Non-dairy

If you are a hot chocolate lover, this recipe, loaded with cow's milk and heavy whipping cream, is sure to thrill you! I've substituted a can of evaporated milk for the heavy whipping cream at times. It is still great, but the original recipe really is the game-changer. 

I know this doesn't look gorgeous in the photo. Ideally I'd of put it in a clean crock with no evidence of stirring, but this is real life and lots of vigorous stirring had been occurring!

Tonight I decided to make a half batch in the smaller crock pot that was mostly dairy free and contained very little refined sugar. If you have dairy free chocolate chips on hand, you can make this totally dairy free! Those chips don't completely dissolve like dairy based chocolate chips, but they do work. I used dark chocolate regular chips with this version and even my dairy eaters thought it was good. Really, for the nearly 3 cups of non-dairy milk, you could do a variety of combinations. I don't think I'd go with almond since it has a pretty pronounced flavor. Place everything in the little crock pot and start out on high, whisk vigorously on and off during the first 30 minutes if you get time, then reduce to low. For faster cocoa you can keep it on high but stir every 15 min or so. On low the whole time it takes about 2 hrs to be ready, whisking just a time or two during those 2 hrs. Usually we want it faster so I do the high/low combo. Preheating the milk is an option as well to speed up the process.

• 1 can of full fat coconut milk (can use lower fat but it won't be as creamy)
• 7 oz unsweetened vanilla flax milk (this tastes naturally sweeter than oat or unsweet soy milk and adds protein)
• 2 cups unsweetened vanilla oat milk 
• 3 TBSP date syrup
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup of dark chocolate chips (can use any kind, probably even white if you are into that sort of thing!)

This hadn't been drunk, the thick chocolate on the sides of the mug is from the ladle. It is not a watery cocoa!