Hotel Chocolat Velvetiser

[Coffeewinecake]

Are they worth it?
It’s coming to that time of year (although it’s hot and sunny at the moment!) and was thinking of getting as a joint Xmas gift for DCs.
I spoke to someone at Hotel Chocolat but I still don’t really understand what they do (the velvetiser, not the shop assistant). Are they just a glorified milk frother that take up extra space and cost a lot more?
TIA

you can add biscoff spread. And Nutella. And broken up chocolate bars like mint aero...

Wow, thanks all for your responses! Will search the Dualit version, too. I did notice how it said to only use Hotel Chocolat products with it and I did a big inward eye roll 🙄.

@eeeeeeeee - I don’t drink much hot chocolate but my DCs (14 and 12) love it. The younger one spotted it in Hotel Chocolat the other day and was blown away by the idea of it. Not wanting to spoil DC12 by just randomly buying it on demand, I thought it would make a nice Christmas gift but the DC14 will definitely want to use it, too so buying it for them jointly seemed to be a good solution.
They will both get their own individual gifts but we don’t tend to buy expensive ones for them anyway (books, onesie, that kind of thing).

Oh and yes, they will absolutely need to wait for one to be made before making the second - the hardship!

I love mine, I dotn like the hotel chocolate hot choc tho I use another brand. You cna use anything in it

I bought one in lockdown due to boredom and money burning a hole. I fully expected it to be relegated to a cupboard, but it’s proved quite popular. Mine came with two free cocoa cups.

I usually HC sachets for ease, but other hot chocolate is fine.

This, difficult to describe but it is really smooth. One drawback is it isn't very hot, so I heat milk in microwave, then add really hot milk to velvetised hot chocolate. I use Cadbury hot chocolate or you can grate real chocolate. I don't use mine all the time but more than the odd occasion.

Love ours and still in frequent use several years on, makes much better hot chocolate than the aeroccino thing that came with a coffee machine. Ours comes out properly hot too - maybe we're just lucky with that. It's made by Dualit so I can imagine that their own one is good too.

For those saying it doesn't get that hot what I do is fill a mug full of boiling water whilst it makes the hot chocolate and you can also press the button once it's finished so it goes on a bit longer to heat it a bit more then tip the mug of boiling water away and pour the hot chocolate in. It's always really hot then! I use cadburys hot chocolate and oat milk and I used vanilla oat milk and also salted caramel oat milk last week to give it different flavours

Contrary to the majority I find the velevetiser too hot and have to add a bit of cold milk!!

If you buy it from QVC you can try it and send it back. We love ours. I pour the first cup into a saucepan to keep it warm until the second one is done, so we can have them together. I couldn't be arsed to whisk etc.

Our gets used daily by two DD's. But we have swapped to using glassy chocolate powder rather than the hotel chocolat version (except for special occasions) due to exorbitant cost

It is a glorified milk frother, but in a good way. Chocolate always comes out smooth and frothy and if you don’t find it quite hot enough just warm the mug with boiling water before serving.

They are somewhat overpriced for what they are, but you can often find them discounted at Costco.

Amazon often have them on offer in the run up to Christmas, I think the ones I bought last year came with some nice mugs and lots of different sachets.

I love mine. I use chocolate from Pendragon Drinks in mine.

I use ours quite a lot- bought it as a new house present when we moved nearly 6 years ago. Favourites are the Mint and Salted Caramel and Clementine flavours. Another who says stay away from the Latte selection.
I’m buying my son and his wife one for Christmas with Emma Bridgewater Mugs as they’re just the right size.

I love mine yes it's a milk frother but if you like hot chocolate it is worth it

Ours was a gift. It's really easy to use. The dc use it for hot chocolate on a regular basis and I'm happy for the younger dc to use it without supervision (in a way in which I wouldn't if they were heating milk in a pan). We also use it for latte sachets. Apart from the sachets which came with it, we use whatever hot chocolate we have at home.

The only downside is that you can only heat 1 portion at a time - when there are 4 of you, it takes longer than heating milk on the stove.

I've got the Dualit version, which was about half the price. I love hot chocolate and it's easily our most used appliance, probably daily in autumn and winter. I started using standard Cadbury's powder but have moved onto the Hotel Chocolate 70% flakes to cut down on sugar. The main appeal for me is it's so easy to use, rather than faffing around watching milk boil or taking my chances with exploding milk in the microwave.

As for the heat, I find it's just the right temperature to drink almost immediately - just enough time to take it to bed and read.

I love mine! We use it most days (especially in winter) and makes such a smooth cup of hot chocolate. Expensive though so we alternative between the proper chocolate and just instant stuff. I wouldn’t be without it but my kids love hot chocolate!

We love our Velvetiser. It’s used several times a day.
Main issue is the amount of milk we get through…..

See I've read loads of people saying this (not just on this thread) and never got it, mine always comes out too hot to drink immediately. I'm not sure if I've got one on a turbo boost or how hot people want their drinks!

I love mine. Much less faff than any other way of making it and absolutely delicious.

I absolutely love it and use it pretty much every day, even in Summer! I am a chocoholic though!
I am yet to find a smoother, more ‘chocolatey’ (as opposed to sugary cheap tasting) hot chocolate, they are just divine.

If you bought it as a joint present, you could always buy each DC their own boxes of flavoured sachets. They do a selection box which I found great when I first got the velvetiser to try all the flavours to see which ones I liked the best and then I ordered bigger boxes of my favourite ones.

DP bought one for me almost 3 years ago. I was very sceptical at first and almost made him return it. I used to microwave my hot chocolate) but I’m now a convert - it mixes the chocolate in beautifully and I love the froth on the top. Never bothered with their sachets - just buy a sack of Callebaut chocolate chips (I recommend the 54.5% for a richer flavour, my daughter prefers hers with 33.6% for a sweeter/caramelly flavour). I find it’s too hot to drink even when filled to the max line, not sure if that affects the temperature much.

Love mine. It comes out of the cupboard around Halloween and is put away again around March, so we keep it as a treat for the colder months. Don’t pay full price for one though - if you’re in the HC VIP club you can get a good discount on it. Each one comes with 2 ceramic cups. When making for kids I tend to split one serving between the 2 cups and top up with milk, as the hot chocolate is very rich. You absolutely can use other hot chocolate with the machine, but make sure it’s good quality and preferably a flaked chocolate one.

We have one & it's great. Our kids also love it. Makes the best hot choc ever. Can use other brands in it too 😉