pumpkin spice hot cocoa (#choctoberfest 2017)

This post is sponsored by Rodelle. All opinions are my own! xo

Before I get carried away and forget to say what I need to say, I want to quickly introduce y’all to my new fav food blog event of the year… #Choctoberfest! Whoop whoop! It’s officially the third celebration of all things chocolate, and I couldn’t be more excited to join the Choctoberfest gang for the very first time this year.

It’s crazy that over 70 bloggers are participating and will be posting 200+ chocolate recipes over the next week. If you want more of them, make sure to check out the other blogs below (there’s a lot, but they’re all amazing and lurking their blogs is definitely worth it ;)). You can also explore the #Choctoberfest hashtag on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, and check out the #Choctoberfest Pinterest board, where we post chocolate recipes all year long.

None of this would have been made possible with our gold and silver sponsors: Imperial Sugar and Barlean’s. We appreciate them so much for making Choctoberfest possible!

Oh yeah, and did I mention there is a massive giveaway at the end? Yeah, there’s a massive giveaway at the end.

Recipe video: check back soon :)

Ok. Here we go.

One of the things I love most about fall is the general feeling of… warmth. You know? The cooler weather calls for necessities like fuzzy socks, thick sweaters, and bundling up by the fire. And this year, you know what I’ll be doing? Making a whole lot of this bomb cashew pumpkin hot cocoa.

I was completely inspired by Lindsay’s cashew coffee she posted a while back, and the consistency the cashews gave the drink! It was honestly kind of a miracle, so naturally I had to hot-cocoa-ify it. However, instead of blending the cashews in with the cocoa, I blended the cashews into a “cream,” that I then blended in with the cocoa to create a creamy, foamy drink. That way, you can control how pumpkin-y/foam-y your drink is!

The cashews give the cocoa a whole faux whipped cream feel, but way creamier and almost latte-esque. And obviously, that cream has pumpkin and pumpkin spice in it, because I’m addicted to pumpkin… enough said.

 

I was so so excited when Rodelle sent me their gourmet, Dutch-processed cocoa. Ohmygoodness it is so rich! I wouldn’t be raving about them if I didn’t truly love everything this cocoa has to offer, because let me tell you… this stuff is legit. 11/10 recommend!

Here’s the massive giveaway I was talking about at the beginning of the post. Thank to our amazing sponsors who are contributing the following items!

• $100 gift card to Williams Sonoma or Sur La Table from our gold sponsor Imperial Sugar
• 1 case of granulated white sugar (40 pounds), 1 case of light brown sugar (24 pounds), 1 case of dark brown sugar (24 pounds), and 1 case of powdered sugar (24 pounds) from our gold sponsor Imperial Sugar. That’s a whoollee lot of sugar, btw :)
• 16 oz Barlean’s Butter-Flavored Coconut Oil, 9.52 oz canister of Chocolate Silk Greens, and 8oz bottle of Essential Women Omega-Swirl Chocolate Mint from our silver sponsor Barlean’s
• 300-piece Lindt LINDOR Truffles gift bag (you choose the flavors!) from blog sponsors The PinterTest Kitchen

This prize pack is valued at over $450! To enter, simply follow participating sponsors and bloggers using the below giveaway widget.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Stay tuned to see the delicious chocolate-themed recipes my fellow bloggers are posting! Thank you also to our to Davis Chocolate, and Rodelle for being shoutout sponsors!

Here is a complete list of all the bloggers participating in #Choctoberfest 2017, so you can keep up with the various recipes they’re posting throughout the week:

The PinterTest Kitchen ♥ Fix Me a Little Lunch ♥ Savory Moments ♥ Crumbs in my Mustachio ♥ House of Nash Eats ♥ Bake It With Love ♥ That Recipe ♥ Hardly A Goddess ♥ Cooking With Carlee ♥ A Kitchen Hoor’s Adventures ♥ Body Rebooted ♥ Cindy’s Recipes and Writings ♥ The Redhead Baker ♥ Faith, Hope, Love, & Luck Survive Despite a Whiskered Accomplice ♥ Sweet Coralice ♥ Seduction in The Kitchen ♥ Cooks&Books&Recipes ♥ Everyday Eileen ♥

Under My Apple Tree ♥ Family Around The Table ♥ Bottom Left of the Mitten ♥ The Spiffy Cookie ♥ Fairyburger ♥ Join Us, Pull up a Chair ♥ Jonesin’ For Taste ♥ Jane’s Adventures in Dinner ♥ Take Two Tapas ♥ Jennifer Bakes ♥ The Unlikely Baker ♥ Hostess At Heart ♥ Karen’s Kitchen Stories ♥ Kate’s Recipe Box ♥ Kelly Lynns Sweets and Treats ♥ Wildflour’s Cottage Kitchen ♥ Chocolate Slopes ♥ Little House Big Alaska ♥

Makes, Bakes and Decor ♥ 2 Cookin Mamas ♥ That Skinny Chick Can Bake ♥ Books n’ Cooks ♥ Mildly Meandering ♥ Living Ideas ♥ Restless Chipotle ♥ Get the Good Stuff! ♥ The Weekday Gourmet ♥ An Affair from the Heart ♥ West Via Midwest ♥ Cookie Dough and Oven Mitt ♥ The Bitter Side of Sweet ♥ Cookaholic Wife ♥ Daily Dish Recipes ♥ For the Love of Food ♥ The Saucy Southerner ♥ Cook’s Hideout ♥

By the Pounds ♥ Tramplingrose: Cooking, Baking & Ranting in Small-Town South Dakota ♥ Sarah Cooks the Books ♥ Chef Sarah Elizabeth ♥ Fantastical Sharing of Recipes ♥ Sarah’s Bake Studio ♥ The Pajama Chef ♥ Frankly Entertaining ♥ Long Distance Baking ♥ Palatable Pastime ♥ The Freshman Cook ♥ The Food Hunter’s Guide to Cuisine ♥ A Day in the Life on the Farm ♥ Wendy Polisi ♥ Tampa Cake Girl ♥ Canning and Cooking at Home ♥ Full Belly Sisters ♥ SuperSizeGuy.com ♥ Our Good Life ♥

Oof… that was a lot, but they’re all my faves and ALL worth checking out :)

You can check out all of today’s #choctoberfest recipes down here:

Thank you to Rodelle for sponsoring this post!