Thursday’s G2 (How to cocoa like a pro, 13 September) gave me the biggest laugh of the day (or maybe the week). Thank you. All you need is a saucepan, milk, cocoa powder (preferably a good strong Fairtrade one), plus the sweetener of your choice and a teaspoon and a wooden spoon. Possibly some patience too?
While heating the milk gently in the saucepan, measure your chosen amount of cocoa into a mug with a bit of cold milk and stir to create a paste. For just one drink, pour the boiling milk into the mug, or for several heartwarming drinks, add the paste from the mugs back into the saucepan. Either way, energetic stirring ensures a good result.
As for frothing, that rather depends on whether you use sugar or (truly decadent) condensed milk. The latter will prevent frothing but certainly warms up a chilly winter night.
Washing up minimal. Gadgets zero, unless you fanny about grating extra chocolate on to the top of course.
Kate Enright
Weymouth, Dorset
• Hot-chocolate-making machines? Try mine: mug of milk heated in microwave; several teaspoons of really good chocolate powder whisked in by hand. Sip with contentment. 10/10. The upside: no gadgets to wash, only a mug and spoon!
Catherine Roome
Staplehurst, Kent
• When I was young, the Wolf Cub Annual used to have instructions on how to cook hedgehogs (Letters, 11 September). It involved wrapping them carefully in clay, then baking. Breaking open the coating removed the spines. It was gruesome enough for me to always remember but not practise it. Fortunately, making a hedgehog house is now one example of something that will help a Cub achieve a Naturalist Activity Badge.
Roy Kettle
Hitchin, Hertfordshire
• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
• Read more Guardian letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters
• Do you have a photo you’d like to share with Guardian readers? Click here to upload it and we’ll publish the best submissions in the letters spread of our print edition
