Chocolate Syrup

A plain cocoa syrup for cold drinks, printed with one ingredient line lost — the loose-leaf page gives cocoa and salt but never states the sugar. A few things worth settling before you start.

• The missing sugarThe method calls for sugar dissolved in a cup of water, but no quantity survives on this page. Treat the amount as unknown rather than assuming, since the sugar concentration is what determines both thickness and keeping quality.
• Total liquidTwo cups of water in all: one for the sugar syrup, one to slake the cocoa. The second cup is not optional — dry cocoa dropped into boiling syrup will seize into lumps.
• Cocoa, not chocolate"Cocoa" here means unsweetened cocoa powder, which in American kitchens of this period was generally the natural (non-alkalized) type. Dutch-process cocoa will give a darker, milder syrup; either works.
• Boil slowlyCocoa solids scorch readily and the mixture foams up. Keep it at a bare simmer for the ten minutes and stir, or you will taste the bottom of the pan in the finished syrup.
• The saltHalf a teaspoon in roughly two cups of syrup reads like a lot, but it is doing the same work salt does in a modern chocolate dessert — sharpening the cocoa. Add it off the boil as directed.
• "Ice chest" means refrigerator"Ice chest" means cold storage -- the ice-cooled box of the period. This is a chilled syrup, not a shelf-stable preserve. Bottle it clean, keep it cold, and use it within a few weeks; discard at any sign of mold or fermentation.
• Yield and useThe yield cannot be fixed while the sugar quantity is missing. Use a few tablespoons per glass of cold milk or seltzer to taste; the syrup thickens as it chills.