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Hot Chocolate
Formula I.-Eight ounces chocolate, 4 ounces granulated sugar, 28 ounces boiling water, chocolate syrup enough to m make a gallon. Select a rich brand of chocolate. Grate or scrape fine and triturate with the sugar; then in a large warm mortar form a paste by trituration, gradually adding 18 ounces of boiling water; transfer to a porcelain vessel, heat slowly, stirring well; gradually add the remainder of the water, bring to a boil and boil for five or six minutes, stirring constantly; stir for some time after removing from the fire, then bring to a boil again and boil for one minute. By this means separation of cacao butter is prevented, and the mixture does not require straining, but simply skimming. Add the syrup, and the mixture may be flavored with vanilla extract or other flavors. Care must be exercised to make a smooth paste in the beginning, and to avoid scorching at the last. A quantity of the chocolate may be kept on hand, in grated or scraped form, mixed with the proper amount of sugar. In serving, use 1½ ounces of the syrup, add an ounce of cream, fill the mug with hot water, top with whipped cream, and serve with crackers and a spoon. Formula II.-Three and one-half ounces Baker's or other good soluble cocoa, 2 pints water, 40 ounces granulated sugar, 4 drams vanilla extract. Heat the water to boiling, stir in the cocoa, gradually added; add the sugar; when latter is dissolved, strain and add the extract. Serve like the preceding. Formula III.- Four ounces powdered chocolate, ½ ounce starch, 2½ pints water, 2½ pounds sugar, 2 drams vanilla extract. Mix the chocolate and starch by trituration, mix intimately with part of the water, pour on the remainder of the water in a boiling condition, stir well and heat to boiling until the starch is cooked, stirring constantly; add the sugar, stir until dissolved, add the vanilla extract. Serve like the preceding. Formula IV.-Three pounds powdered Dutch cocoa, ½ gallon water, 2 pints cream, 5 ounces tincture of vanilla, teaspoonful salt. Enough simple syrup to make 1 gallon.
Four soda-fountain formulas for a chocolate syrup, not for a finished cup. Each makes roughly a gallon of concentrate that is drawn off an ounce and a half at a time, so scaling down is the first thing to do.
- Read it as a syrup recipeNothing here is drunk as made. A gallon of Formula I yields something like eighty servings at the stated 1½ ounces of syrup per mug. Divide by eight or ten before starting.
- Ounces are weight, not volumeOunces are weight where a solid is meant -- 8 oz chocolate, 4 oz sugar, and weigh those. For the water it makes little practical difference: 28 ounces is about 3½ cups either way, and the other three formulas give water in pints and gallons, i.e. by volume.
- DramsAn apothecaries' dram is ⅛ ounce. Four drams of vanilla extract is half a fluid ounce, about a tablespoon. Five ounces of tincture of vanilla in Formula IV is a generous ⅝ cup, but that batch is a full gallon.
- TriturationSimply grinding and working the dry ingredients together with a pestle, then working in liquid a little at a time to build a paste without lumps. A bowl and a stiff spoon do the same job; the point is that the cocoa solids must be wetted gradually or they will never disperse.
- What the chocolates are"Chocolate" in Formula I means plain unsweetened cacao mass, sold now as unsweetened baking chocolate, which is why it needs grating and why cacao butter separates out. "Soluble cocoa" and "Dutch cocoa" both mean cocoa powder with much of the fat pressed out so that it disperses in water; "Dutch" specifically means alkali-treated, while "soluble" was a looser trade description. Dutch-process cocoa from any brand will serve.
- The double boil is the hingeBoiling, resting with stirring, then boiling again is what keeps the cacao butter emulsified in Formula I. Skip it and you get a slick of fat on top that has to be strained rather than skimmed. Constant stirring at the end matters just as much: a chocolate syrup at this sugar concentration scorches quickly.
- The starch in Formula IIIThe half ounce of starch appears to be there for body, and to help hold the cocoa in suspension. Cook it out at a full boil as the recipe directs, or the syrup will taste raw and pasty.
- Formula IV has no methodThe book gives proportions only. Treat it as a variant of the others: disperse the cocoa in the water, cook it, then add cream, salt, vanilla and enough simple syrup to bring the batch to a gallon. Note that the cream makes it perishable in a way the others are not; keep it refrigerated and use it within a few days.
- Serving1½ oz syrup, 1 oz cream, hot water to fill the mug, whipped cream on top, with crackers and a spoon alongside as the recipe directs. No mug size is given.
Soda fountains in the United States grew out of pharmacies, and this book reads like it: chocolate is compounded in a mortar by trituration, measured in drams, and described in the language a druggist would use for a cough syrup. The hot drinks section mattered commercially because ice cream and cold soda collapsed in winter, and fountains needed something to sell between November and March. Making a keeping syrup rather than a fresh cup was pure counter economics, since a dispenser could draw eighty servings from one batch without touching a saucepan during service. The distinction the formulas draw between plain chocolate and "soluble" or Dutch cocoa reflects two separate developments usually associated with the van Houten firm in the Netherlands in the early nineteenth century: a press that removed much of the cacao butter, and the distinct alkali treatment known as Dutching, which was said to make the powder mix more readily with water.