Starbucks Peppermint Hot Chocolate with a Twist

Starbucks sells packaged peppermint hot chocolate mix for around $6-$7 and it comes with 8 envelopes of the hot chocolate mix.

I find that however, the taste is kind of bitter (not completely bitter, but it's not that sweet) so what I like to do to add a little bit of sweetness to the hot chocolate is use Sweetened Vanilla Almond Milk instead of regular milk.

250 ml (one cup) of sweetened almond milk is 90 calories, which is around the same calories in nonfat milk anyways.

Each envelope of hot chocolate powder is 120 calories - so it'll total to around 210 calories using sweetened vanilla almond milk. Of course you can use unsweetened almond/vanilla almond milk which is 40 calories per cup, but I prefer the sweetness that the sweetened vanilla almond milk brings.

So you measure around a cup of sweetened vanilla almond milk, pour it into a mug and put it in the microwave for 30 second intervals (and stir it so that it stays smooth), for around 2-3 minutes, depending on how warm you like your milk.

Then you take your mug out of the microwave and stir in one package of Starbucks peppermint hot chocolate and add whipped cream if you wish!