Tasting History with Max Miller
Published Feb 23, 2024Rich, thick, dark hot chocolate spiced with cinnamon and cardamom
City/Region: England
Time Period: 1747Up until the 19th century, the most popular way to partake of chocolate was to drink it. Aztecs drank a very bitter chocolate, and when Europeans brought it back home, they paved the way for one of the most perfect of food pairings: chocolate and sugar.
This hot chocolate is fairly dark, so feel free to add more sugar if that’s to your taste. It’s super rich and much thicker than most hot chocolates you’d get today, so you may only want to make a small amount of the drink and save the rest of the chocolate for later. The spices jump out at you, and even though mine still had a bit of grittiness from the cocoa nibs (it’s basically impossible to get it completely smooth at home), it was really, really good.
“Another way to make chocolate.
TAKE six pounds of the best Spanish nuts, when parch’d and clean’d from the hulls; take three pounds of sugar, two ounces of the best cinnamon, beaten and sifted very fine; to every two pounds of nuts put in three good vanelas, or more or less as you please; to every pound of nuts half a dram of cardamum seeds, very finely beaten and sierced.”
— The Art of Cookery, Made Plain and Easy by Hannah Glasse, 1747
Ingredients:
2/3 cup (135 g) sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 vanilla bean or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, more or less to your taste
Scant 1 cup (200 g) cocoa nibs
2 cups milkInstructions:
- Whisk together the sugar and spices to combine. Whisk in the cocoa nibs.
- Put everything in a blender or food processor and blend it up. This will crush the cocoa nibs and melt the cocoa butter in them, eventually turning it into a liquid or paste. Give your blender breaks if it starts to overheat. It took me a total of 15 to 20 minutes of blending. You could do this in a mortar and pestle, but it would take forever. I ground just a small amount of cocoa nibs for about 20 minutes and it wasn’t anywhere near where it needed to be.
- If you’re not using it right away, pour it into a bowl or other container and let it sit until it hardens.
- Take the hardened chocolate out of the container. Chop the desired amount into small pieces. How much you use will depend on how chocolatey you want your hot chocolate.
- Heat the milk in a pot until it simmers. Add the chopped chocolate and whisk vigorously. You want to mix in the chocolate, but also create some froth. You could also use a molinillo to create froth if you have one.
- Pour the hot chocolate into fancy cups (small ones are best because it’s so rich), and serve it forth.
June 3, 2024
18th Century Spiced Hot Chocolate
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