CHOCOLATE

CHOCOLATE

260. -- General Directions for Making Chocolate.

Provide yourself with an iron pestle and mortar, also a stone slab of a very fine grain about two feet square, and a rolling-pin of hard stone or iron. The stone must have an opening beneath in which to place a pot of burning charcoal to heat it. Warm the mortar and pestle by placing them on a stove, or charcoal may be used, until they are so hot that you can scarcely bear your hand against them. Wipe the mortar out clean, and put any convenient quantity of prepared nuts in it, which pound until they are reduced to an oily paste into which the pestle will sink with its own weight. Add fine powdered sugar to the chocolate paste. After it has been well pounded, the sugar must be in proportion of 3 lbs. to 4 lbs. of prepared cocoa. Continue to pound it until completely mixed; then put it in a pan and place it in the stove to keep warm. Take a portion of it and roll or grind it well on the stone slab with the roller, both being previously heated like the mortar until it is reduced to a smooth impalpable paste, which will melt in the mouth like butter when this is accomplished. Put it in another pan and keep it warm until the whole is similarly disposed of; then place it again on the stove, which must not be quite so warm as previously. Work it over again, and divide it into pieces of two, four, eight, or sixteen ounces each, which you put in tin mould. Give it a shake, and the chocolate will become flat. When cold, it will easily turn out. 

261. -- Chocolate Harlequin Pistachios.

In making harlequin pistachios, you warm some of the sweet chocolate by pounding it in a hot mortar. After it has been prepared in this manner, take some of it and wrap it round a blanched pistachio nut; roll it in the hand to give it the form of an olive, and throw it into nonpareils of mixed colours, so that it may be variously coloured, a la harlequin. Proceed with the remaining pistachio nuts after the same fashion, dropping them into the nonpareils so that the comfits will adhere to the pistachios. Fold them in coloured or fancy papers, with mottoes. The ends are generally fringed. 

262. -- Chocolate Drops with Nonpareils.

 Prepare some warm chocolate as in the preceding recipe. When the chocolate has been well pounded and is a smooth impalpable paste, make it into balls the size of a small marble by rolling in the hand. Place them on square sheets of paper about one inch apart; having filled the sheet, take it by the corners and lift it up and down, letting it touch the table each time: this will flatten them. Completely cover their surfaces with white nonpareils, gently shaking off the surplus ones. After the drops are cold, they can be very easily removed from the paper. The drops should be about the size of a sixpence. 

263. -- Chocolate in Moulds.

It is usual now amongst confectioners to use the English unsweetened chocolate, as it saves much time and trouble, and is equally good. To form it into shapes you must have two kinds of moulds, made either of thick tin or copper tinned inside; the one sort is impressed with a device or figure, and with a narrow edge; the other is flat or nearly so, and the same size as the previous mould, with a shallow device in the centre. You put a piece of prepared chocolate into the first mould, and then cover it with the flat one; upon pressing it down the chocolate receives the form of both devices. After it is cold it can be easily taken out. It should have a shining appearance.