Hot chocolate

“ Beat the white of egg slightly, add the syrup, water, sugar as needed, the chocolate, melted over hot water, and the vanilla, also more water if necessary. Work with a silver plated knife and knead until thoroughly mixed, then break off small pieces of uniform size and roll them into balls, in the hollow of the hand, flatten the balls a little, set the half of an English walnut upon each, pressing the nut into the candy and thus flattening it still more. The caramel gives the chocolate a particularly nice flavor. ”

“ Put in the vanilla; butter your hands well, make the cream into balls about the size of a large marble, and lay upon a greased dish.
Meanwhile, the chocolate should have been melted by putting it (grated fine) into a tin pail or saucepan and plunging it into another of boiling water. When it is a black syrup, add about two table-spoonfuls of powdered sugar to it, beat smooth, turn out upon a hot dish, and roll the cream-balls in it until sufficiently coated. Lay upon a cold dish to dry, taking care that they do not touch one another. ”

“ When the creams are ready to dip take half a pound of unsweetened chocolate or cocoa and put it in the bowl, and place this in one of the basins or saucepans into which boiling water has been poured. You can add a trifle of boiling water to the chocolate to hasten its melting. When it is melted add an equal amount of melted fondant, and stir constantly till the mixture is like thick cream. To melt the fondant put it into a saucepan, and set this into a second filled with hot water. Never place the basin with the fondant in it directly on the stove. It will scorch and burn in a twinkling. ”

“ Take one cupful of flour and add to it one tablespoonful of baking-powder. Sift into a bowl and add one cupful of sugar. Mix well together. Melt one-half cupful of grated chocolate in a tablespoonful of hot water, add two teaspoonfuls of vanilla and half a teaspoonful of soda. Beat up two eggs, add the chocolate and one-fourth cupful of melted butter. Work into the flour and sugar mixture. The dough must be stiff enough to form into balls the size of a hickory-nut. Drop on greased tins an inch apart. When cool dip in chocolate fondant. ”

“ It is a failing of many persons to heat the center too hot so that it will run through the funnel more readily, but the result is a hard center that will never get soft, and nothing can be done to soften it after it is once hard. A chocolate center becomes soft within three or four days.
CHOCOLATE CREAMS.
You may make them any flavor or color you desire. You may, if you wish, roll bon-bon cream up into balls and coat them with chocolate, but this does not make a nice chocolate cream, and the proper way is to mould the centers in cornstarch as directed, using the center cream for this purpose. ”

“ Next stir in, gradually, while the chocolate is still boiling-hot, a quarter of a pound or more of powdered loaf-sugar. If you use such white sugar as is bought ready powdered, you must have near half a pound, as that sugar has very little strength, being now adulterated with ground starch. When the chocolate is [128] well sweetened, set it away to cool. Beat eight eggs very light, and pour them through a strainer into the pan of chocolate, when it is quite cold. Stir the whole very hard. Then put it into the oven, and bake it well. ”

“ Put the sugar, glucose, one cup of the cream and the butter over the fire; stir and cook until the mixture boils vigorously, then gradually add the other cup of cream. Do not allow the mixture to stop boiling while the cream is being added. Cook until the thermometer registers 250° F., stirring gently—move the thermometer, to stir beneath it—every four or five minutes. Without a thermometer boil until—when tested by dropping a little in cold water—a hard ball may be formed in the water. Remove from the fire, add the chocolate and nuts and beat until the chocolate is melted ”

“ No. 2.—Put two cups of granulated sugar into half a cup of sweet cream. Boil five minutes from the time it begins to boil hard. Set the pan into cold water and stir in the flavoring, a teaspoonful of vanilla, usually. Stir until the candy is so stiff that stirring is difficult; drop from a spoon on waxed paper; as it hardens, mould into balls, and dip in chocolate as above.
Chocolate Candy, Plain.—Melt a square of unsweetened chocolate and stir into plain fondant, flavoring generously with vanilla. ”

“ Put a cup and a half of milk in a saucepan with four ounces of sweet, fine chocolate grated, let it boil until dissolved and add a slightly heaping tablespoonful of sugar. Take two-thirds of the soaked gelatine and put into the chocolate when melted, cool the mixture and turn into a mould, roll the mould from side to side in the hands until it is thoroughly coated with the mixture about a finger thick. When cold, even off the surface with a knife. Whip about half a pint of nice, rich cream, sweeten with powdered sugar and flavor with vanilla. ”

“ If it is found to be too thin, it will run off the candy and make large, flat edges on the bottom. In such an event, work it and cool it a little more. When it is of the proper thickness, put the centers in, one at a time, and, as shown in Fig. 2, cover them completely with the chocolate and place them on waxed paper or white oilcloth to harden. As they harden, it will be found that they will gradually grow dull. ”

“ The sugar may either be put in with the scraped chocolate or added afterwards.
It should never be made before it is wanted; because heating again injures the flavour, destroys the froth, and separates the body of the chocolate; the oil of the nut being observed, after a few minutes’ boiling, or even standing long by the fire, to rise to the top, which is the only cause this chocolate can offend the most delicate stomach. ”

“ Take the desired amount of chocolate; break it into pieces, put them in a double boiler, and place it over the fire. The heat of the water in the lower part of the boiler melts the chocolate. Do not put on a lid or add water because moisture or water that gets into the chocolate ruins it for chocolate coating, but it may be used for cocoa or baking. In most cases where the chocolate becomes too thick to coat with, you can save it by adding cocoa butter, of which we will tell you later on. Stir the chocolate occasionally while melting, to help break up the lumps. ”

“ Melt butter and shaved chocolate in a sauce pan; add sugar, corn syrup, and Carnation diluted with the water. Cook until mixture forms a soft ball in cold water or reaches a temperature of 235°F, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking. Remove from fire and let stand until cool. When cool add vanilla and beat until creamy; add chopped nuts and mold on a buttered plate. FUDGE BALLS may be made by forming the candy into balls and rolling in chopped nuts, cocoanut, grated chocolate, or dipping in melted chocolate. ”

“ Boil the sugar as directed for fondant in the recipe for Chocolate Creams, No. 2, but not quite so long—say about eleven minutes. The syrup, when tested, should be too soft to ball. When cold, pour into a bowl, and beat until thick and creamy. If properly boiled, it will not become thick enough to work with the hands.
Have six ounces of Walter Baker & Co.'s Premium No. 1 Chocolate melted in a bowl. Pour half of the creamed sugar into another bowl, and, after flavoring with a few drops of vanilla, add to it about one-third of the dissolved chocolate. Stir until thick and rather dry ”

“ One often wonders why the candy-eating public has the chocolate habit. The answer is simple. The manufacturer generally offers the public chocolates. To one not conversant with candy-making, it is not so easy, however, to explain why the candy-maker offers the chocolates largely to the exclusion of other confections. To the initiated, however, the matter is simple indeed. Chocolate makes an air-tight covering that protects all sides alike. It makes it possible to keep candy not intended for immediate consumption and to ship it from one place to another without injury. ”

“ There are a great many different grades of coating chocolate, and we strongly encourage using a good chocolate, as the better grades give the best results; because there is less sugar in it, and it lends itself more readily to the manipulations, gives a more glossy finish, and has a much richer taste than the cheaper chocolates, which are adulterated. Chocolate which sells for about forty cents a pound is a good quality. You may, if you are unable to procure this coating, use the ordinary cooking chocolate, which you will find in all grocery stores. ”

“ We likewise know, as was conceded, that chocolate in a great variety of forms is an important ingredient of what is commonly known as candy, and that pieces of sweet chocolate of the type described by the findings are often included in packages of confectionery commonly sold as candy. These considerations at least suggest that the form and use of sugar compounds, intended for taste gratifying consumption, are quite as important in determining whether they are candy, as their particular composition. ”

“ CHOCOLATE PUDDING.—Have the best and strongest American chocolate or cocoa. Baker’s prepared cocoa will be found excellent for all chocolate purposes; better indeed than any thing else, as it is pure, and without any adulteration of animal fat, being also very strong, and communicating a high flavour. Of this, scrape down, very fine, two ounces or more. Add to it a tea-spoonful of mixed spice, namely, powdered nutmeg and cinnamon. Put it into a very clean sauce-pan, and pour on a quart of rich milk, stirring it well. ”

“ Genuine chocolate should dissolve in the mouth without grittiness, and should leave a peculiar sensation of freshness; after boiling it with water the emulsion should not form a jelly when cold, for if it does starch or flour is present. The presence of animal fat may generally be detected by a cheesy or rancid flavour. See Cocoa.
Qual., &c. Chocolate is nutritive and wholesome if taken in moderation, but is sometimes apt to disagree with weak stomachs, especially those that are easily affected by oily substances or vegetable food. ”

“ Before chocolate was known in Europe, good old wine was called the milk of old men; but this title is now applied with greater reason to chocolate, since its use has become so common that it has been perceived that chocolate is, with respect to them, what milk is to infants. In reality, if one examines the nature of chocolate a little, with respect to the constitution of aged persons, it seems as though the one was made on purpose to remedy the defects of the other, and that it is truly the panacea of old age. ”

“ Chocolate is a most delicious drink if properly prepared; it is, however, so often raw, muddy and strong that we have not been able to educate ourselves to its peculiar disagreeableness. Make it by the following rule and you will find it both nutritious and pleasant: Select with care the best make of chocolate, and into a little cold water rub smooth five tablespoonfuls of grated chocolate; be sure that it be rubbed in smoothly, a hard particle of chocolate is as unwelcome a visitor in your cup as floating tea leaves or black bobbing bits of coffee berries. ”

“ Some persons complain of being unable to digest chocolate; others, on the contrary, pretend that it has not sufficient nourishment, and that the effect disappears too soon. It is probable that the former have only themselves to blame, and that the chocolate which they use is of bad quality or badly made; for good and well-made chocolate must suit every stomach which retains the slightest digestive power. ”

“ Chocolate is both nutritious and heat-giving, and nearly every child likes it. Care, however, should be taken that pure chocolate is eaten. Thick soups, such as pea, lentil, or potato soup, are very wholesome, and contain plenty of heat-giving materials, whilst they are perhaps cheaper than chocolate. Many children, indeed, might be saved from the doctor’s hands, if their tastes were more consulted as to food, and they were given heat-giving foods, which they liked, and would eat, instead of suet puddings or fats, which they disliked. ”

“ At nine o'clock the next morning his servant came in with a cup of chocolate on a tray, and opened the shutters. ”

“ It appeared that there had even been demonstrations to thank Big Brother for raising the chocolate ration to twenty grammes a week. And only yesterday, he reflected, it had been announced that the ration was to be reduced to twenty grammes a week. Was it possible that they could swallow that, after only twenty-four hours? Yes, they swallowed it. ”

“ In lecturing on cookery, as on housebuilding, I divide the subject into, not four, but five grand elements: first, Bread; second, Butter; third, Meat; fourth, Vegetables; and fifth, Tea,—by which I mean, generically, all sorts of warm, comfortable drinks served out in teacups, whether they be called tea, coffee, chocolate, broma, or what not.
I affirm that, if these five departments are all perfect, the great ends of domestic cookery are answered, so far as the comfort and well-being of life are concerned. ”

“ Thy plot of grass is soft, and green as grass can be;
Rest, little young one, rest; what is’t that aileth thee?
What is it thou wouldst seek? what is wanting to thy heart?
Thy limbs are they not strong? And beautiful thou art:
This grass is tender grass; these flowers they have no peers;
And that green corn all day is rustling in thy ears!
If the sun be shining hot, do but stretch thy woollen chain;
This beech is standing by, its covert thou canst gain!
For rain and mountain storms, the like thou need’st not fear;
The rain and storm are things that scarcely can come here. ”