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Cocoa, Prepared
Mix two tea-spoonfuls of prepared cocoa with a little cold milk, beat it with the back of a spoon until quite smooth, then pour over it equal quantities of boiling milk and water sufficient to fill a breakfast-cup. Stir well together. The rock cocoa must be scraped into powder before it is used, then made as above. Time, five minutes.
A single cup of drinking cocoa, made by the paste method that predates instant powders. The whole trick is in the first step.
- The hinge: make a smooth paste firstCocoa solids will not wet out in hot liquid; they clump and float. Work the powder with a teaspoon or two of cold milk against the bowl of the cup until it is a glossy paste with no dry specks, then add the hot liquid in a thin stream while stirring.
- "Prepared cocoa"A commercially treated soluble cocoa sold ready for the cup; such products were often cut with sugar, arrowroot or other starch, and some were alkalised (Dutch-process). Modern unsweetened cocoa powder stands in directly, but you will need to add sugar to taste.
- SweeteningNo sugar is listed, which suggests the packet cocoa was already sweetened. With plain cocoa powder reckon on one to two teaspoons of sugar per cup, dissolved into the paste.
- Rock cocoaA hard pressed cake or lump of cocoa sold by weight, scraped with a knife into shavings before use. It has vanished from shops; a block of unsweetened chocolate is a relative but contains far more cocoa butter, so it will give a richer, greasier cup than the recipe intends.
- A breakfast-cupLarger than a teacup – roughly 8 to 10 fl oz. Two teaspoons of cocoa in that volume is a mild drink by current tastes; three is closer to what most people now expect.
- Half milk, half waterCutting cocoa with water was common in Victorian recipes, economy being one likely reason. All milk works and tastes richer; the half-and-half version is lighter and lets the cocoa flavour read more clearly.
- TimeFive minutes covers boiling the liquid, not steeping. Once assembled the drink is ready; holding it over heat only skins the milk.
- YieldOne cup, as written. It scales cleanly – make the paste in the bottom of the jug rather than in each cup.
Drinking cocoa changed character completely in the nineteenth century. Until the 1820s a cup of cocoa was greasy, since the ground bean carries over half its weight in cocoa butter; the Dutch chemist Coenraad van Houten is generally credited with the press that removed much of that fat, and with the alkali treatment that still bears the name Dutch-process, both of which made a powder that would mix into liquid instead of separating. By the time Cassell's dictionary appeared, British firms were selling that powder in tins as "prepared" or "soluble" cocoa, and older forms such as the scraped lump of rock cocoa were on their way out – which is why this entry explains what to do with both. Cocoa's place in the household books of the period owes something to the temperance movement, which promoted it alongside tea as a respectable, non-alcoholic drink suitable for breakfast and supper alike.