Home › Our Susan's Opinion of a Kitchen › Chocolate
Chocolate
Scrape Baker's chocolate fine, mix with a little cold water and the yolks of eggs well beaten; add this to equal parts of milk and water, and boil well, being careful that it does not burn. Sweeten to taste, and serve hot.
A nineteenth-century drinking chocolate thickened with egg yolk, closer to a thin custard than to modern cocoa. The whole recipe hinges on how you treat the eggs.
- Baker's chocolateIn this period Baker's meant unsweetened baking chocolate sold in a hard cake, which is why it has to be scraped. About 1 oz of unsweetened chocolate per cup of liquid is a workable modern proportion; chop or grate it rather than scraping if you have a knife and board.
- Don't boil the yolks"Boil well" will scramble the eggs into threads. Temper the yolk-and-chocolate paste with a ladle of the hot milk first, return it to the pan, and hold it just below a simmer, stirring, until it thickens and coats a spoon.
- Egg countThe original gives no number. Two yolks to about three cups of liquid gives a noticeably rich, slightly thickened drink; one yolk is enough if you only want body.
- Milk and waterEqual parts may have been a matter of economy as much as taste. All milk works and is richer; all water makes something much closer to a strong bittersweet chocolate.
- ScorchingThe warning about burning is real with a thin pan. Use a heavy saucepan over medium-low heat, or a bowl set over simmering water if you want no risk at all.
- SweeteningUnsweetened chocolate needs roughly 1 to 2 teaspoons of sugar per cup of liquid. Add it while the drink is hot and taste.
- YieldThree cups of liquid serves two generously or four in small cups.
Chocolate came to nineteenth-century American households as a drink long before it was widely eaten as candy, and cookbooks of the period often file it with coffee and tea rather than with desserts. Walter Baker & Company of Dorchester, Massachusetts, was the leading domestic supplier, and its name appears in recipes of the period almost as a generic term for unsweetened chocolate in cake form. Enriching chocolate with egg yolk is an older practice: before commercially processed, easily dispersed cocoa powder was common in kitchens, ground chocolate tended to separate and settle, and a beaten yolk both thickened the cup and helped hold the fat in suspension. The Home Cook Book was compiled from contributed receipts by Chicago women for the benefit of the Home for the Friendless, first published in 1874, which may explain the brevity — these were notes passed between cooks who already knew what a cup of chocolate should look like.