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Chocolate II
Prepare same as Chocolate I., substituting one can evaporated cream or condensed milk diluted with two cups boiling water in place of three cups milk. If sweetened condensed milk is used, omit sugar.
A canned-milk variant on the book's basic hot chocolate, written for households without fresh milk on hand. The whole substitution turns on knowing which can you have opened.
- Evaporated is not condensedEvaporated milk is unsweetened; sweetened condensed milk is roughly 40 percent sugar. The recipe treats them as interchangeable in volume only, which is why it tells you to omit the sugar called for in Chocolate I when using the sweetened kind.
- Can sizes have shiftedA standard can of evaporated milk today is 12 fl oz; sweetened condensed is 14 oz by weight. Period cans were not necessarily the same size as today's. Working with a modern 12 oz can plus two cups of boiling water you end up with about three and a half cups of liquid, close enough to the three cups of milk it replaces; a larger can will push the total higher.
- "Cream" on the label"Evaporated cream" was a common trade name for what we now simply call evaporated milk. Do not substitute actual heavy cream, which will make the drink cloying and prone to breaking.
- The chocolateThis is a variant of Chocolate I, which is not reproduced here; in books of this period 'chocolate' means unsweetened cake or squares rather than cocoa powder or eating chocolate. If you use a sweetened bar, cut the sugar accordingly.
- Make the syrup firstFollow whatever Chocolate I directs; in this style of recipe the chocolate is generally dissolved with the sugar and a small quantity of boiling water into a smooth syrup before any milk goes in. Adding chocolate directly to milk tends to leave gritty specks.
- Do not boil after the milkOnce the diluted canned milk is in, keep it just below a simmer. Canned milk is already heat-treated and scorches readily; boiling also throws a skin on top.
- YieldRoughly three and a half cups with a modern 12 oz can, in place of the three cups of milk it replaces. Sweetened condensed milk gives a noticeably heavier, almost candy-like drink.
Canned milk earned its place in American cookbooks through the Civil War, when Gail Borden's sweetened condensed milk -- patented in the 1850s -- became a ration staple and then a pantry standard; unsweetened evaporated milk followed later in the century and was widely sold under names like "evaporated cream." A recipe like this one exists because refrigeration was unreliable and fresh milk was a daily errand, while a can kept for months on a shelf. That the Boston Cooking School book gives hot chocolate two full versions also says something about the drink's standing: chocolate, made from unsweetened squares, was still a distinct beverage from cocoa, and Boston had a long stake in it, since the Baker company had been grinding chocolate in nearby Dorchester since the eighteenth century.