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Apple Chocolate
1166. In a quart of new milk boil a pound of scraped French chocolate, and six ounces of white sugar. Beat the yolks of six eggs, and the whites of two, and, when the chocolate has come to a boil, remove it from the fire, gradually add the eggs, stirring well at the time. Have ready a deep dish, at the bottom of which you have placed a good layer of pulped apples sweetened to taste, and seasoned with powdered cinnamon; pour the chocolate gently over it, and place the dish upon a saucepan of boiling water. When the cream is set firmly it is done. Sift powdered sugar over it, and glaze with a red-hot shovel, if you have nothing better. This preparation is not only very delicious, but exceedingly salutary, on account of the apples being a corrective to the too great richness of the chocolate.
A chocolate custard set over a layer of sweetened apple pulp, cooked gently over water rather than baked dry. The whole thing turns on temperature: keep the custard below a simmer or it will curdle into sweet chocolate scrambled eggs.
- French chocolateThis means a hard cake of chocolate, usually sweetened and sometimes flavoured with vanilla or cinnamon, meant to be scraped and dissolved in milk for drinking. Dark eating chocolate at 55-60% cacao is a reasonable stand-in; if the bar is already sweet, the six ounces of sugar can be reduced accordingly.
- The chocolate-to-milk ratioA pound of chocolate to a quart of milk is extremely rich by current taste, and the older chocolate cakes were bulked out with sugar and starch in a way modern couverture is not. Six to eight ounces of chocolate per quart gives a custard closer to what the recipe intends.
- New milkSimply fresh whole milk, unskimmed and not soured. Whole milk works; half milk and half cream makes a heavier set.
- Pulped applesA thick, dry apple purée, closer to reduced apple butter than to loose applesauce. Cook the apples down until a spoon drawn through leaves a channel, or the moisture will weep up into the custard.
- The setStanding the dish on a saucepan of boiling water is a bain-marie by another name. In practice the water is better kept at a bare tremble than a rolling boil, and the custard is done at 170-175F, when the centre still shivers slightly.
- Adding the eggs"Gradually add the eggs, stirring well" is tempering, and it is the hinge of the dish. Pour a ladleful of the hot chocolate into the beaten eggs first, whisking, then return the mixture to the pan off the heat.
- Glazing with a red-hot shovelThe shovel stands in for a salamander, an iron plate heated in the fire and held over sugar to caramelise it. A kitchen blowtorch does the same job; a very hot grill works if the custard is well chilled first so the top browns before the centre loosens.
- YieldA quart of milk with the eggs and chocolate will roughly fill a two-quart dish and serve eight to ten. Several hours in the cold before serving suits it, though the original glazes it hot.