Hot Chocolate Drink Mix

I orginally found a recipe for Hot Chocolate Drink Mix on The Cheapskate's Club website back in 2010.  After reading the free newsletters for a couple of months,  I really wanted to pay for a membership to get access to all the recipes in the recipe file.  This was one of my first light bulb moments when I found I could make my own hot chocolate instead of buying Milo which is dear and tends to go hard when it's not used for a while.

The beauty of finding a recipe is that you can make your own changes to suit your family's taste.  That's what I've done and here's my version

2 cups of milk powder - full or skim milk
1/2 cup of castor sugar or regular white sugar
1 cup of unsweetened cocoa powder sifted
1/2 cup of coffee whitener - optional

Mix all ingredients together in a bowl with a whisk.
Store in an air tight container

To serve, use 2 teaspoons of the mix in boiling water.  Add a little milk and extra sugar if desired

NOTES -

*  No name cocoa powder can be used.  This is what I use

*  Coffee whitener is found in the tea  / coffee aisle.  It's usually on the bottom shelf.

*  If you don't want to use coffee whitener,  then just add a little extra milk powder.

*  This makes a wonderful present either given in a glass jar or in a cello bag decorated with a ribbon.

Fruit Crumble Topping Mix For Desserts

Jessica's favourite homemade dessert is apple crumble.  She could happily eat it at least once a week.  She's been known to eat leftovers for breakfast the next day.  When you think about it,  it does make a healthy breakfast too.  Having this bulk mix on hand in the pantry helps to get a quick dessert in the oven.


1 cup of plain flour
2 cups of rolled oats
1/3 cup of brown sugar ( MOO )
1 teaspoon of cinnamon ( approx ).

Mix all ingredients well and store in an air tight container.

To serve use 3/4 cup of mix and add two tablespoons of melted butter to a bowl.

Mix well and pour over cooked apple, or any tinned / stewed fruit and bake in the oven as per your recipe

This dry mix recipe can be doubled or tripled to suit the container size you'll store it in.

Dried Seasoned Bread Crumbs

These homemade bread crumbs are very tasty,  cheap and easy to make.  I use them to coat chicken fillets,  chicken drumsticks and salmon patties.  Unfortunately I don't measure out the ingredients when I make the seasoned bread crumbs.  It's usually a shake of this and a good shake of that and some taste testing along the way.  However you make your bread crumbs,  they'll be much nicer than anything you'll buy in the supermarket.

Here are my approximate measurements -

3 cups of dried bread crumbs.
1 cup of crushed corn flakes or wheat bix
1 tablespoon of dried onion powder or 2 tablespoons of dried onion flakes.
1 tablespoons of rock salt ( less if desired )
2 teaspoons of paprika
1 teaspoon of dried garlic granules or powder
few peppercorns or pepper
about 1 tablespoon of dried chives or parsley

If you are using granules or flakes for your seasonings,  whiz them in a coffee grinder or use a mortar and pestle.

Mix everything together in a large bowl.  Place in an air tight container..  Once the lid is on give it a good shake to distribute the seasonings evenly over the bread crumbs.  Store in the pantry.

NOTES -

*  I use a food processor to blitz bread crusts from the ends of loaves of bread. ( saved up in the freezer ). Any bread can be used.  The crumbs are then spread evenly on large oven trays and baked at 160 degrees Celsius for about 20 minutes until golden and dry.  You may need to use a spoon to loosen the bread crumbs half way through baking to even out the drying process

*  If you are running low on seasoned bread crumbs,  add a couple of handfuls of crushed corn flakes and / or wheat bix to the mix.

Ready to make.

The seasonings in a large bowl.

Mixing it up.

Storing in an air tight container.

Brown Sugar

Making your own brown sugar is a very simple and frugal thing to do.  You know exactly what is in it and costs about half the price of what supermarkets charge. 

Here's the recipe -

1 kilo of white sugar
3 tablespoons of molasses

Place the sugar into a food processor first.

Then add the molasses.

Blitz the two ingredients for one minute then scrape down the sides of the bowl.  Repeat the process couple of times until the molasses is well blended.

Store in an air tight container in the pantry.

NOTES -

*  Molasses is found in the health food section of the supermarket and costs about $4.00 for a 550 gram jar.

*  Brown sugar can be made in a bowl with a spoon .  It just takes a little longer and can be messy.

*  I use home brand sugar.

*  Total cost for 1 kilo of homemade brown sugar is about $1.60.  Supermarkets charge this amount for only 500 grams.

Gravy Powder

I've tried making my own gravy powder a few different ways with varying degrees of success.  Some were too bland and some were too light in color that I felt compelled to add soy sauce to darken it.  The best one I've tried is to make my own and mix it with store bought no name gravy powder.  It's the best of both worlds.  It cheaper than no name and reduces the amount of artificial ingredients.

Here's the recipe -

150 grams of no name gravy powder
6 really heaped dessert spoons of plain white flour
2 tablespoons of dried onion flakes
1 tablespoon of onion powder
1/2 tablespoon of garlic powder
1/2 tablespoon of sweet paprika ( normal variety )
2 reasonably heaped dessert spoons of beef stock powder
2 teaspoons of celery powder
1 1/2 tablespoons of dried parsley
2 teaspoons of salt
good shake of pepper

Mix all the ingredients together in a medium bowl and store in an airtight container.
To make it up add 2 - 3 tablespoons of gravy powder mix to 1 or 1 1/2 cups of cold water.  Stir or whisk until it's hot and thickens.

Total cost to make 470 grams is about $2.  This makes more than the standard box of no name gravy which is 425 grams.

Dry ingredients

The finished products