Cocoa Syrup
Boil two cups of sugar in one cup of water for five minutes, and add one cup of cocoa which has been rubbed to a smooth paste with one cup of water. Boil slowly for ten minutes. Add a pinch of salt. When thoroughly cool, bottle, and keep in ice box.
A soda-fountain syrup, meant to be spooned into cold milk or seltzer rather than eaten as sauce. The whole recipe hinges on keeping the heat low once the cocoa goes in.
- Cocoa by volume"One cup of cocoa" means unsweetened cocoa powder, roughly 3 oz / 85 g. Natural (non-alkalized) cocoa was the usual choice in American household cooking of this period, though Dutch-process was also available; natural gives a sharper, fruitier syrup, Dutch-process a smoother and darker one.
- Slow boil means slowCocoa solids and sugar scorch readily and the burnt taste cannot be corrected. Keep the pan at a bare simmer for the ten minutes and stir more or less continuously, using a heavy-bottomed pan.
- Make the paste properlyWhisk the cocoa into the cold cup of water until no dry lumps remain before it meets the hot syrup. Dumping powder into boiling sugar syrup gives grit that will not disperse later.
- The pinch of saltNot seasoning in the usual sense — it sharpens the chocolate flavour and cuts the flatness of a very sweet syrup. About 1/8 teaspoon is right for this quantity.
- Yield and useMakes something on the order of 2 1/2 to 3 cups, depending on how hard it boils. Figure 2 tablespoons per 8 oz glass of cold milk or soda water, more for a hot drink.
- The ice boxThere is no preservative here beyond sugar, and the concentration is lower than a true preserving syrup. Refrigerate in a clean, tightly closed bottle and use within two to three weeks; discard at any sign of surface mould or fermentation.
- Cooling before bottlingBottling warm traps condensation at the neck, which dilutes the top layer and invites mould. Cool fully, uncovered, then seal.
- ThinningThe syrup thickens considerably as it chills and may need a splash of hot water whisked in to pour cleanly. That is normal, not a fault in the boil.
The vocabulary here is that of the commercial soda fountain — syrups, phosphates, egg drinks, ices. A bottled cocoa syrup was the household version of the fountain's pump jar: made in quantity, kept cold, and drawn on all week for chocolate milk, chocolate sodas and hot cocoa without cooking from scratch each time. Cocoa powder itself was a nineteenth-century industrial product, the defatted cake left after pressing cocoa butter from the bean, and its cheapness relative to drinking chocolate is what put recipes like this one in general household books at all.