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Cocoa with Cinnamon
Mix two teaspoonfuls of cocoa with a little milk to a smooth paste, then add hot milk and boil for three minutes. Add a little cinnamon and whipped cream. O milk and water!
Ye happy mixtures of more happy days.
Byron.
A single-serving cocoa, thickened only by boiling the milk with the cocoa paste. The whole method rests on the paste step.
- Make the paste properlyCocoa powder will not wet out in hot liquid; it clumps. Stir the two teaspoons with a tablespoon or so of cold milk until it is glossy and free of lumps before any hot milk goes in.
- Cocoa, not drinking chocolateThe book means unsweetened cocoa powder. Natural (non-alkalized) cocoa is probably closer to what a book of this period intended; Dutch-process gives a darker, milder cup. Modern hot-chocolate mixes already contain sugar and milk solids and will not work here.
- No sugar is givenThe recipe calls for none; sweeten to taste if you want it, at the table or stirred into the paste. Two teaspoons of cocoa to a cup of milk is quite bitter; 1 to 2 teaspoons of sugar is a reasonable starting point.
- Quantity of milkUnstated. One cup (8 oz) per two teaspoons of cocoa gives a normal-strength cup; the quantities suggest a single serving.
- The three-minute boilBrief boiling hydrates the starch in the cocoa and may thicken the drink slightly. Keep it at a bare boil, stir constantly, and use a heavy pan; milk scorches on the bottom and forms a skin on top within that time.
- CinnamonA pinch of ground cinnamon stirred in off the heat, or a short piece of stick cinnamon dropped in during the boil and lifted out. Ground cinnamon will settle, so serve promptly.
- Whipped creamUnsweetened, whipped only to soft peaks so it slumps into the cocoa rather than sitting on it as a stiff cap.
The Byron tag on milk and water, borrowed from Beppo, is put to work as a dry joke. Cocoa was an obvious mainstay for such collections: cheap, filling, respectable, and by then sold in tins of defatted powder rather than as the fatty ground bean of earlier centuries, a change generally traced to the Dutch press patented by Van Houten in the 1820s. Spiced chocolate came to Europe from Mesoamerica already flavored, with chile and vanilla standard additions before sugar and milk took over the cup; cinnamon, an Old World spice, was added later by the Spanish.