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Rich Chocolate
1 teaspoonful of vanilla extract.
INGREDIENTS. 4 ounces of chocolate. 4 tablespoonfuls of granulated sugar. ¼ a cup of hot water.
1 quart of scalded milk.
Whites of 3 eggs.
1 pint of thick cream. 1/3 a cup of powdered sugar.
Method. - Grate the lated sugar and hot water, and cook until smooth and glossy; with a whisk beat in the hot milk very gradually, and return to a double boiler to keep hot. Beat the cream until solid. Beat the whites of the eggs until dry, then beat in the chocolate, add the granu-
This is a hot drinking chocolate from the chafing-dish era, and the printed text has come through scrambled — the ingredient list and method have been transposed line by line. Several points below concern reading the original at all; the last concerns why it should not be made.
- Raw egg white is the problemThe whites of three eggs are beaten until dry and used as an uncooked foam; the surviving text never brings them to a temperature that would pasteurize them, roughly 160F. Salmonella in shell eggs is the specific risk. Use a current recipe.
- The text is out of orderThe vanilla has floated to the top above the word INGREDIENTS, and the method breaks mid-sentence and resumes at the beginning. Read it as: grate the chocolate, beat in the granulated sugar and hot water, cook until smooth and glossy, then whisk in the hot milk gradually. The cream and whites are separate finishing steps.
- QuantitiesThe printed page gives a quarter cup of hot water, and the text now reads that way. The remaining measures are one teaspoon vanilla, one quart scalded milk, and one pint thick cream.
- What "chocolate" meantFour ounces of chocolate here is unsweetened block baking chocolate, which is why four tablespoons of granulated sugar and a third of a cup of powdered sugar appear separately. It is not cocoa powder and not a modern eating bar.
- GratingHousehold chocolate came in hard cakes that had to be grated or shaved before it would dissolve. Modern chocolate is softer and chopping does the same work — the instruction reflects the product, not a technique with any virtue of its own.
- Scalded milk and thick creamScalding meant heating to just below the boil, around 180F, a habit from the days before pasteurization. "Thick cream" is heavy or whipping cream; "beat until solid" means whipped to stiff peaks.
- YieldA quart of milk plus a pint of cream and the foam makes roughly six to eight cups, a quantity for several servings rather than a single mug.
Rich chocolate of this kind belongs to the turn of the twentieth century, when American cookbooks carried elaborate hot drinks of this sort; note that this recipe directs a double boiler, not a chafing dish. The recipe's structure — chocolate cooked to a smooth paste with sugar and water before any milk goes in — is a long-established method, and the step matters: it disperses the cocoa solids and keeps the finished drink from tasting gritty. The crown of whipped cream and beaten egg white reflects an era in which raw eggs were commonly used as an enrichment.