Grits with Cocoa and Cinnamon (Krupicová Kaša)

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Ingredients: milk (2 cups), 6 tablespoons of grits, ground cinnamon, cocoa, sugar, unsalted butter
Prep time: 20 minutes

When I was growing up in what used to be Czechoslovakia (the Czech Republic and Slovakia now), people never ate cereal for breakfast. I don’t think anything like cereal was even available. Some folks ate oatmeal (ovsené vločky), but for most the typical breakfast consisted of a raisin bread with jam, bread with a meat spread (pašťeka), hemendex, or, the meal I show in this post, sweet grits with cocoa and cinnamon, krupicová kaša (meaning grits porridge). If you never had grits, you should definitely try this recipe. It’s delicious. You can prepare grits by cooking them in water instead of milk. I actually used to use water, until I saw a recipe on this recipe page (in Slovak) suggesting milk. Grits turn out creamier (and tastier I think) when cooked in milk. Besides milk and grits, you will ground cinnamon, sugar, butter, and cocoa powder. I used the 100% kind found in the baking section, but you can use a hot chocolate mix instead.

Bring the milk to boil and add the grits. Also add one tablespoon of sugar. Take unsalted butter out of the fridge to let it soften up.

Reduce the heat, and stir until grits thicken enough so they don’t immediately fill in the gap left behind the stirring spoon. This will take about 15 to 20 minutes.

Pour the grits into a bowl and top with a tablespoon of ground cinnamon and a tablespoon of cocoa. Then add 3 thin slivers of butter.

Serve un-mixed along with hot chocolate or cocoa. Stir in the toppings before eating. Enjoy!
