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Cream Chocolate
Place a full half ounce of American Cream Chocolate in cup and fill with hot water, or better, with hot milk and hot water mixed. Top with a spoon-or better, with hot milk and hot water mixed. Top with a spoonful of whipped cream.
A soda-fountain drink written as a counter instruction rather than a kitchen recipe, and the text has been garbled in printing — the phrase "or better, with hot milk and hot water mixed. Top with a spoon" repeats. Read it as one sentence: fill with hot water, or better with half milk and half water, then top with whipped cream.
- What the chocolate wasThe capitalised name suggests a branded product rather than a generic ingredient: most likely a sweetened ground chocolate or chocolate paste. It is not baking chocolate. The nearest modern equivalent is a good sweetened drinking-chocolate powder or a thick chocolate paste; unsweetened cocoa alone will give a bitter cup at this ratio.
- Half an ounceAbout 14 g. The recipe does not say how large the cup is, so the strength of the finished drink is a matter of judgement; taste and add more if it reads thin.
- Milk and waterThe recipe gives no proportions, only milk and water mixed. All milk gives a heavier cup; all water is thin but lets the chocolate flavour read more sharply.
- Dissolving itMix the chocolate to a smooth paste with a spoonful of the hot liquid first, then fill. Pouring the whole quantity onto dry powder leaves lumps that no amount of stirring in a tall cup will clear.
- TemperatureThe recipe says only "hot". Milk held at a full boil scorches and skins; bring it to about 160-170F, hot enough to steam but not to break.
- The creamThe recipe specifies only a spoonful of whipped cream, with no sweetening mentioned; whipped softly it will melt into the surface rather than sit up as a stiff cap.
- YieldOne cup. The instruction is written for a single serving, built in the cup itself.
Soda fountains sold hot drinks as well as cold, and the phrasing of the instruction suggests it was meant for a fountain rather than a home kitchen. Formularies of this kind were written for dispensers rather than home cooks, which is why the instruction names a brand-style product by weight and says nothing about pans, whisks or stirring. "Cream chocolate" appears to have been a sweetened chocolate preparation compounded to dissolve readily in hot liquid, and the whipped-cream top was the standard fountain flourish, the same garnish that went on the sodas and sundaes. The doubled line in the printed text is fairly read as a compositor's slip.