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Chocolate Syrup
Melt 2 squares unsweetened chocolate over boiling water, add 2/3 cup sugar and Few grains salt and stir until well mixed. Pour on gradually 3/4 cup boiling water and stir until smooth. Boil 5 minutes, cool, turn into a jar and keep in ice box or cold place. Four times this amount may be made and kept on hand for use with hot or iced milk.
A straightforward chocolate syrup that needs only a translation of vessels, units and storage expectations.
- "Squares" of chocolateA square of baking chocolate is one ounce, so this calls for 2 oz unsweetened chocolate. Modern bars are usually scored into 1 oz sections; if yours is not, weigh it.
- "Over boiling water"This means a double boiler or a bowl set over a pan of simmering water, not direct heat. Unsweetened chocolate scorches easily over a direct flame and will turn grainy and bitter if it overheats.
- Add the water graduallyThis is the hinge. Pouring the boiling water in all at once seizes the chocolate into a stiff lump; add it in a thin stream, stirring constantly, and the mixture stays glossy and smooth.
- The 5-minute boilA true boil is hard to reach in a double boiler, so this stage is easier over direct heat, stirring. The boil concentrates the syrup and thickens it.
- YieldAbout one cup of syrup, roughly enough for eight glasses of milk at 2 tablespoons each. The quadruple batch mentioned at the end makes about a quart.
- "Ice box or cold place"The refrigerator. With no dairy in it the syrup keeps for some weeks covered and chilled; it thickens when cold, so let it stand a few minutes or stir it before measuring.
- Using itAround two tablespoons to a cup of milk is a workable proportion. For iced milk, stir the syrup into a little of the milk first, since cold syrup sinks and stays at the bottom of the glass.
Bottled chocolate syrup was a soda-fountain product before it was a household one: druggists kept a chocolate syrup on hand to mix into milk and carbonated water, and home cooks kept jars of their own. That is why the instruction to make four times the amount matters more than it looks — a jar of syrup in the ice box turned chocolate milk from a stovetop project into something that could be poured on demand, hot or iced. Unsweetened chocolate is the older baking form, and syrups built on it appear in American cookbooks well before commercial bottled brands became supermarket staples.