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Frozen Chocolate with Whipped Cream
2 squares unsweetened chocolate 1 cup sugar Few grains salt 1 cup boiling water 3 cups rich milk Scald milk. Melt chocolate in small saucepan placed over hot water, add one-half the sugar, salt, and gradually boiling water. Boil five minutes, add to scalded milk with remaining sugar. Cool, freeze, and serve in glasses. Garnish with whipped cream sweetened and flavored with vanilla.
A no-egg frozen chocolate, closer to a chocolate sherbet or a spoonable frozen drink than to custard ice cream. The five-minute boil of the chocolate syrup is what keeps it smooth.
- Chocolate squaresA square of unsweetened chocolate is 1 ounce, so this calls for 2 ounces total. Modern unsweetened baking bars are usually scored into 1-ounce sections or sold as 4-ounce bars.
- Boil the syrup fullyGive the mixture the full five minutes after the water goes in. It helps dissolve the sugar completely and cook the chocolate into a smooth syrup; a shorter boil is more likely to leave the frozen mixture gritty.
- Add the water graduallyPour the boiling water into the chocolate-and-sugar paste a little at a time, stirring smooth between additions. Dumping it in at once leaves lumps that never fully break up.
- "Rich milk"Period shorthand for milk that has not been skimmed, and sometimes for milk with cream added. Whole milk works; 2 1/2 cups whole milk plus 1/2 cup cream will freeze less icy.
- ScaldingBring the milk to about 180F, when it steams and shows bubbles at the edge, not a rolling boil. Scalding was routine in period cookery; today it simply helps the sugar dissolve and softens the finished texture.
- Freezing without a machineThe original assumes a hand-crank freezer packed with ice and salt. In a modern ice cream maker, chill the mixture thoroughly first and churn 20-25 minutes. Still-freezing in a shallow pan works too, but stir the mixture with a fork every 30 minutes for the first 2-3 hours or it sets into a solid block.
- Serve softGlasses suit a soft, spoonable consistency, though the recipe says nothing about texture beyond 'serve in glasses.' If it has frozen firm, let it stand 10 minutes before serving.
- YieldRoughly 5 cups of mixture, so a good quart and a quarter frozen; six or so glasses.
Unsweetened chocolate sold in wrapped one-ounce squares was a fixture of American kitchens by the turn of the twentieth century, and cookbooks of the period reach for it constantly — the measurement "two squares" was as clear to a reader then as "two ounces" is now. Cold chocolate drinks were also popular at soda fountains in the same period. Because this one contains no eggs and only the fat in the milk, it is leaner than a custard ice cream, which is why the whipped cream garnish does real work — it supplies richness the base leaves out.