Frugal Friday: Hot Cocoa Mix

This is a new thing I'm trying, called Frugal Fridays.   I'm going to attempt to post about something frugal that we've tried each week on Friday (makes sense, no?).

With a blizzard barreling down on us, I've been thinking about what kinds of foods are nice when you're snowed in (and potentially without power for days given CL&P's performance in recent years).  I realized that hot cocoa fit the bill perfectly - it's hot, tasty, and only needs hot water.   Then I went and looked at the ingredient list of commercial hot cocoa powder and was kind of horrified - corn syrup, partially hydrogenated oils, cellulose gum, soy lecithin, even artificial flavor.   Um, doesn't the cocoa give hot cocoa its flavor?  Why is artificial flavor even needed?   Some name brands contain artificial sweeteners (which we don't eat in our house) or even more chemical soup.

I went online and found a recipe for homemade hot cocoa powder, courtesy of Alton Brown.   Now, Alton's recipes have never steered me wrong and this one was no exception.   The ingredients are super-simple:

2 cups powdered sugar
1 cup cocoa (Dutch-process preferred)
2.5 cups powdered milk
1 tsp salt
2 tsp cornstarch
Pinch cayenne pepper.  

Combine in a mixing bowl and mix evenly.  Fill a mug halfway with the mixture and add hot water, stir to combine.   

I already had the salt, cornstarch, and cayenne pepper so I stopped at Aldi to pick up the powdered sugar, cocoa, and dry milk.   I measured and mixed and ended up with 5.5 cups of hot cocoa mix.   I put 1/4 cup into a mug, added hot water, and it was AWESOME!   Just like store bought hot cocoa, but it dissolved easily and tasted more rich.  

(Kindly ignore my cheap pink laminate countertops.  They came with the house and we've been too poor to remodel.)

The question - is it really frugal?  I spent $2.49 on the cocoa powder, $1.39 on powdered sugar, and $6.99 on dry milk.   Based on the quantities in each package I have a per-cup cost for each major ingredient of $0.885/cup, $0.185/cup, and $0.655/cup.   For the quantities used to make 5.5 cups of mix, the ingredients cost me $2.90 (neglecting the extremely small incremental costs of salt, cornstarch and cayenne).

So for those keeping track at home, 22 1/4 cup servings of homemade hot cocoa cost $2.90, for a per-serving cost of $0.13/cup.   The cheapest package of Stop & Shop brand hot cocoa comes with 17 1/4 cup servings and costs $3.29, for a per-serving cost of $0.19/cup.   If you go for name brand hot cocoa you'd spent roughly 40% more per serving.    Plus, the homemade powder has simple ingredients with no wacky food chemistry involved - a win/win!