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Chocolate (Mix one half tablespoonful)
Mix one half tablespoonful of cornstarch with a little cold milk. Scald a quart of milk in a double boiler, then add the cornstarch and cook fifteen minutes. Grate two ounces of chocolate, mix with two tablespoonfuls of boiling water, three tablespoonfuls of sugar, and a little salt. Stir constantly until the mixture is very smooth, and then add to the hot milk. Beat until foamy.
A thickened drinking chocolate for four, built on unsweetened block chocolate rather than cocoa powder. The cornstarch is not a mistake — it gives the body that low-fat modern milk otherwise lacks.
- The hinge: slurry the cornstarch coldHalf a tablespoon of cornstarch must be dispersed in a few tablespoons of cold milk before it meets the scalded quart. Added dry it will seize into lumps that no amount of beating will smooth out.
- What "chocolate" means hereTwo ounces of unsweetened baking chocolate, sold in bars and easily grated. Modern semisweet chips or a sweetened eating bar will make the drink cloying, since three tablespoons of sugar are already going in.
- Double boiler, and whyA quart of milk holding a starch will scorch on direct heat. The water bath is the whole reason for the fifteen-minute cook; if you use a heavy saucepan instead, keep the heat low and stir the bottom constantly.
- Fifteen minutes is realCornstarch needs sustained cooking to lose its raw, chalky taste and reach full thickening power. Shortening this step is the usual cause of a pasty finish.
- Making the chocolate pasteTwo tablespoons of boiling water plus the sugar and salt turn the grated chocolate into a glossy paste. Work it until no grit remains — undissolved sugar and unmelted flecks will not disappear once the paste is diluted in a quart of milk.
- "A little salt"Read this as a scant quarter teaspoon. It is there to sharpen the chocolate, not to season the milk.
- Beat until foamyA wire whisk works; an immersion blender works better and takes seconds. The foam is the point of the drink, so do it immediately before pouring.
- YieldAbout a quart, which is four generous cups. It thickens further as it cools and can be loosened with a splash of hot milk on reheating.
Drinking chocolate thickened with a little starch appears in American household cookery from the late nineteenth century onward, and it reflects a period when chocolate was bought as a hard unsweetened cake to be grated, not as a tin of dutched powder or a bag of chips. Chocolate has long been whipped to a froth with a mill or molinillo, and in Mesoamerica the foam was regarded as the best part of the cup.