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On twitter, I mentioned something to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
catherineldf about an early hot chocolate recipe I'd once made that was best described as "chocolate tea", which led to promising to post it if I could track down my notes. Well, it meant getting back to doing more of my ongoing archival file conversions (because the only copy I had was in a PageMaker format for some reason) but I did find the original.
I couldn't manage to get the ingredients properly ground, which is why it comes off as "tea" more than as proper hot chocolate. That and the fact that it's early enough that it's made up with water rather than milk. So in addition to being a bit of a hybrid of two early recipes, it would be better for some more experiments in texture. The occasion of working this up was a "chocolate potluck" at work for Valentine's day quite a number of years ago -- which makes it notable that I still have the rest of the dry mix in a tupperware container in the fridge. It still smells good, so maybe I will try a finer grind sometime soon.
* * *
17th Century Hot Chocolate
Original recipes are taken from: Coe, Sophie D. & Coe, Michael D. 1996. The True History of Chocolate. Thames & Hudson, New York. ISBN 0-500-01693-3
The recipe of Antonio Colmenero de Ledesma (1644)
100 cacao beans
2 chillis (black pepper may be substituted)
a handful of anise
ear flower [a spice]
2 mecasuchiles
(powdered roses of Alexandria may be substituted for the two previous ingredients)
1 vanilla bean
2 oz. cinnamon
12 almonds and as many hazelnuts
1/2 lb. sugar
achiote to taste
The recipe of the Grand Duke of Tuscany (1680)
10 lb cacao beans
jasmine flowers
8 lb sugar
3 oz vanilla beans
4 to 6 oz cinnamon
2 scruples ambergris
* * *
My recipe
I liked the idea of nuts and flowers and the sweet spices, but enough of a non-fan of chili peppers that I wasn't about to add them to my experiment. And ambergris was a bit out of my budget for this project. So here's my ingredients:
1/4 c. cacao nibs
4 t sugar
1/16 t ground cinnamon
approx. 1.5” vanilla bean
1/4 t dried jasmine flowers
1/4 t dried rose petals
1/8 t anise sead
1 T blanched almond
1 T blanched hazelnut
Process all ingredients in a cuisinart until completely powdered and blended. Mix approximately 1 T powder to 8 oz boiling water. There will be sediment, so either leave the dregs or let sit for a short period then strain into your cup.
The jasmine and rose flowers were sourced from an herb company (Lhasa Karnak, I believe) to be sure they were culinary grade. The food processor simply wasn't up to the job of grinding the ingredients finely enough. The result was … interesting. You had to approach it without any preconceptions of what it was supposed to taste like. Pleasant, but definitely unexpected.
catherineldf about an early hot chocolate recipe I'd once made that was best described as "chocolate tea", which led to promising to post it if I could track down my notes. Well, it meant getting back to doing more of my ongoing archival file conversions (because the only copy I had was in a PageMaker format for some reason) but I did find the original.I couldn't manage to get the ingredients properly ground, which is why it comes off as "tea" more than as proper hot chocolate. That and the fact that it's early enough that it's made up with water rather than milk. So in addition to being a bit of a hybrid of two early recipes, it would be better for some more experiments in texture. The occasion of working this up was a "chocolate potluck" at work for Valentine's day quite a number of years ago -- which makes it notable that I still have the rest of the dry mix in a tupperware container in the fridge. It still smells good, so maybe I will try a finer grind sometime soon.
* * *
17th Century Hot Chocolate
Original recipes are taken from: Coe, Sophie D. & Coe, Michael D. 1996. The True History of Chocolate. Thames & Hudson, New York. ISBN 0-500-01693-3
The recipe of Antonio Colmenero de Ledesma (1644)
100 cacao beans
2 chillis (black pepper may be substituted)
a handful of anise
ear flower [a spice]
2 mecasuchiles
(powdered roses of Alexandria may be substituted for the two previous ingredients)
1 vanilla bean
2 oz. cinnamon
12 almonds and as many hazelnuts
1/2 lb. sugar
achiote to taste
The recipe of the Grand Duke of Tuscany (1680)
10 lb cacao beans
jasmine flowers
8 lb sugar
3 oz vanilla beans
4 to 6 oz cinnamon
2 scruples ambergris
* * *
My recipe
I liked the idea of nuts and flowers and the sweet spices, but enough of a non-fan of chili peppers that I wasn't about to add them to my experiment. And ambergris was a bit out of my budget for this project. So here's my ingredients:
1/4 c. cacao nibs
4 t sugar
1/16 t ground cinnamon
approx. 1.5” vanilla bean
1/4 t dried jasmine flowers
1/4 t dried rose petals
1/8 t anise sead
1 T blanched almond
1 T blanched hazelnut
Process all ingredients in a cuisinart until completely powdered and blended. Mix approximately 1 T powder to 8 oz boiling water. There will be sediment, so either leave the dregs or let sit for a short period then strain into your cup.
The jasmine and rose flowers were sourced from an herb company (Lhasa Karnak, I believe) to be sure they were culinary grade. The food processor simply wasn't up to the job of grinding the ingredients finely enough. The result was … interesting. You had to approach it without any preconceptions of what it was supposed to taste like. Pleasant, but definitely unexpected.
