Cocoa
3 tablespoons cocoa 4 tablespoons sugar 1 cup boiling water 3 cups scalded milk Scald the milk in a double boiler. Put the cocoa and sugar in a saucepan, and slowly pour on the hot water, stirring all the time. Boil five minutes, add the scalded milk; beat until foamy with an egg beater. One-half cup of cream makes the cocoa richer.
A standard early twentieth-century hot cocoa, built on a boiled cocoa-and-sugar syrup rather than a quick stir into hot milk. The boiling step is the whole point of the method and worth keeping.
- The hinge: boil the pasteCooking the cocoa, sugar and water together for five minutes is generally held to hydrate and swell the starch in the cocoa powder, helping it stay suspended rather than settling at the bottom of the cup. Skipped, the drink tends to be thinner and to sediment more.
- Which cocoaThis is unsweetened cocoa powder, not drinking chocolate or a sweetened mix. Natural (non-alkalized) cocoa was the norm in American kitchens of this period; Dutch-process gives a darker, mellower cup and works equally well here.
- Scalding milkScalded means heated to about 180F, just until a skin forms and bubbles ring the edge — not boiled. The double boiler exists because direct heat scorches milk proteins onto the pan; a heavy saucepan over low heat with steady stirring does the same job faster.
- Watch the syrupThree tablespoons of cocoa in one cup of water reduces noticeably over five minutes and can catch on the bottom. Use a small heavy pan, keep it at a bare boil, and stir.
- The egg beaterA rotary beater was the standard tool for aerating cocoa; a whisk, immersion blender or milk frother all serve. The foam is not decorative — it lightens the texture of what is otherwise a fairly dense drink.
- SweetnessFour tablespoons of sugar across four cups of liquid is restrained; adjust in the pan to taste.
- YieldAbout four cups, or four modest servings; six in the small cups of the period. A pinch of salt in the paste sharpens the chocolate flavor, and salt appears in some period cocoa recipes.
Cocoa became far more common on American tables in the later nineteenth century, once the hydraulic press method of separating cocoa butter from the bean made a fine, low-fat powder cheap and widely available; before that, chocolate was drunk as a rich, ground whole-bean beverage that had to be milled and frothed. Recipes of this type — cocoa, sugar, boiling water, scalded milk, in that order — recur closely across American cookbooks and cocoa-company pamphlets of the period, which suggests how far the manufacturers' own printed directions shaped domestic practice.