Salted Caramel Frozen Hot Chocolate

Jarrod put me in charge of our dessert for Valentine's Day... but he didn't give me any of the budget money and the dessert needed to be gluten free. My plans to make tiramisu went out the window when I was left with zero dollars.

Of course I hit up Pinterest to try and come up with a dessert recipe using what we already had in the house. After several days of worrying about it, I realized a delicious dessert was right under my nose! Picky Palate's Frozen Hot Chocolate fit the bill! While we didn't have whole milk, we did have 1% milk and half and half... Close enough! We didn't have hot chocolate either, so I decided to pull some dollars from my spending money to make this dessert happen. Thankfully, I found the perfect hot chocolate - Starbucks Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate. For less than $5 this was perfect!

I loved this recipe because all I needed to purchase was hot chocolate mix - I replaced whole milk for part half and half and 1% milk. We happened to have heavy whipping cream and little chocolate chips. Perfect!

Salted Caramel Frozen Hot Chocolate
via Picky Palate

5 packets of salted caramel hot chocolate
2 cups of ice
1 cup whole milk (half and half/1% worked great for me)
1 cup heavy whipping cream
2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 cup mini-chocolate chips

Pour milk and hot chocolate packets into the blender and blend until smooth. Add ice and blend until somewhat smooth - don't overblend. Whip heavy cream with sugar until creamy. Pour chocolate into 4 cups - be sure there is a plate under the cups to catch overflow. Spoon whipped cream on top and sprinkle with chocolate chips. Eat and enjoy!

Note: Next time I'll probably make caramel and top with caramel, salt, and chocolate chips.