Butlers is very common back in Ireland where I come from, and I am a big fan of their hot chocolate. Thick, creamy and really chocolatey with no powdery taste or bitter aftertaste, I was really dissapointed to discover nothing comes close to the taste over here.

In a Butlers cafe there is always a big vat of molten chocolate, and if you order a hot chocolate a big ladlefull of this is spooned into your cup, and topped up with hot, frothy milk.

The at home hot chocolate involves dropping a solid chocolate lump in the shape of a cup into a pan of hot milk, and stiring while it dissolves to stop it sticking or burning. The box also suggests using a mix of milk and cream, or the truely heart stopping just cream.

It is therefore fairly easy to prepare, although it is a shame it requires a hob which means I can't take any in to have at work.

I first made this using my normal semi-skimmed milk, and the results were good. Not great, but certainly better than any cup of hot chocolate made with a powder. However it was still thinner than a cup of proper Butlers chocolate. So I tried putting half milk and half single cream. This produced better results, thicker and creamier, but still not chocolatey enough. So I tried using two chocolate cups, and suddenly I was close enough to there!

Using two chocolate cups per mug does make this quite expensive. You get 10 little cups in a box, with the exchange rate as it is it is the equivalent of around £7 a pack, or around 12 euros. You can buy them in cafes mostly centered around Dublin, or purchase them online and have them delivered. They are a lovely treat, but to be honest I do think the price is very steep for what they are. They are thicker than normal chocolate, but for the price I'd rather just throw a few squares of milk and a few squares of dark into a pan with some milk and I think the results would be similar.

On quite a few occassions we've flown to Dublin for under £1 each, so my advice would be keep an eye on Ryanair, and fly for a day in Dublin and get the real thing in one of their cafes.