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Cracked Cocoa
1/2 cup cracked cocoa 3 pints boiling water Boil cracked cocoa and water two hours. Strain, and serve with milk and sugar. If cocoa is pounded in a mortar and soaked over night in three pints water, it will require but one hour's boiling.
This is a brewed cocoa-bean infusion, closer to coffee or tea than to a cup of drinking chocolate. It is made with cracked cocoa, sold today as cocoa nibs.
- What cracked cocoa isRoasted, hulled cocoa beans broken into coarse pieces — marketed now as cocoa nibs. Cocoa shells (the husk, sometimes sold as cocoa shell tea) were used the same way and give a lighter, thinner brew.
- Not cocoa powderDo not substitute powdered cocoa. Powder will not strain out and two hours of boiling would reduce it to a bitter sludge; the whole point here is a clear infusion drawn from solid pieces.
- QuantitiesHalf a cup of nibs to 3 pints (6 cups) water. Expect noticeable loss to evaporation over two hours; top up with boiling water as needed.