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Click the pic to look out the window
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HOT CHOCOLATE
Since most people are used to opening an
envelope of ?Swiss Miss? powder they are less
inclined to try the real thing. Please believe me
that the Aztecs never had any idea we would
destroy their empire by placing marshmallows a
float their precious drink of the gods.
This is a recipe so enjoyable that you will
probably desire more than one serving. I often
keep this in the fridge and reheat it when I would
like a cup. It does not usually last around my
house for that long.
1 cup of sugar
½ cup Hershey?s cocoa powder
½ tsp almond extract
2 sticks cinnamon (canela if you can find it)
1 cup water
1 can evaporated milk
1 quart milk
In a saucepan heat everything except the milks.
The water will allow all the dry ingredients to
melt. Once it is all melted begin to pour in the milk
whisking with a wire whisk. Lower the flame as
you will not want this mixture to come to a full
boil but rater just get really hot. Now add the
evaporated milk. You should get sort of a froth on
top. Remove the cinnamon. Ladle it into mugs.
We like to use bowls, much like how the French
use bowls to drink café au let. But use whatever
you like.
Since most people are used to opening an
envelope of ?Swiss Miss? powder they are less
inclined to try the real thing. Please believe me
that the Aztecs never had any idea we would
destroy their empire by placing marshmallows a
float their precious drink of the gods.
This is a recipe so enjoyable that you will
probably desire more than one serving. I often
keep this in the fridge and reheat it when I would
like a cup. It does not usually last around my
house for that long.
1 cup of sugar
½ cup Hershey?s cocoa powder
½ tsp almond extract
2 sticks cinnamon (canela if you can find it)
1 cup water
1 can evaporated milk
1 quart milk
In a saucepan heat everything except the milks.
The water will allow all the dry ingredients to
melt. Once it is all melted begin to pour in the milk
whisking with a wire whisk. Lower the flame as
you will not want this mixture to come to a full
boil but rater just get really hot. Now add the
evaporated milk. You should get sort of a froth on
top. Remove the cinnamon. Ladle it into mugs.
We like to use bowls, much like how the French
use bowls to drink café au let. But use whatever
you like.
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| B a r b a r a 's K i t c h e n |
CHOCOLATE
I don?t think that I have ever met anyone in any culture who does not
enjoy chocolate. Again, this is yet another contribution made to the world
by my beloved Mexico.
It was used back in the Aztec Empire as money as well. Cortez once
raided a room where he believed Montezuma was storing gold, only to
discover it was the bean of the cacao.
The cacao fruit is the pod that contains the waxy beans we call the cocoa
bean. The individual beans were the Aztec legal tender. 100 beans could
buy a slave or a wife.
Aztecs drank chocolate as a drink. It was prepared with Mexico?s native
vanilla bean and sweetened with honey. Sometimes it was thickened with
corn flour. There was also a fermented version of this. I have enjoyed a
great many different forms of chocolate in the streets of Oaxaca, Mexico.
Oaxaca is the central processing city for today?s Mexican chocolate
empire.
European missionaries so loved chocolate that they returned to Europe
with it and developed new ways to experience its wonderful flavors.
Even the humble vanilla bean, which was only used to enhance the
chocolate, was developed into the flavor we now enjoy today. I guess
Cortez did indeed find great treasure in that room.
In modern Mexico I will be the first to admit that the chocolate bar made
in Mexico is not really a treat. In fact an ashtray full of ashes may be a
better thing to waste calories on. I do not like Mexican chocolate candy.
Missionaries did a great job by bringing this gift to the world back to
Europe to find the best way to process it for it?s true wonderful flavor and
texture.
Mexico has perfected it as a drink. Which was how they enjoyed it in the
first place. I have been to the factories where chocolate is processed in
Mexico. You can go in and choose your grade of beans. It is then
delivered to a machine, which roasts and grinds it into a thick dark liquid.
Then it is blended with sugar, almonds, and true cinnamon. It is then
poured into molds and left to cool and packaged.
To make the drink you heat milk and melt in a bar of the chocolate. Then
you whip it with a chocolate whip until a nice froth forms on the top. It is
poured into a bowl and drank. It is a wonderful flavor that cannot be
matched by anything else. This recipe is a close match but nothing will
really taste like it tastes in Oaxaca. It is an experience all its own.
I don?t think that I have ever met anyone in any culture who does not
enjoy chocolate. Again, this is yet another contribution made to the world
by my beloved Mexico.
It was used back in the Aztec Empire as money as well. Cortez once
raided a room where he believed Montezuma was storing gold, only to
discover it was the bean of the cacao.
The cacao fruit is the pod that contains the waxy beans we call the cocoa
bean. The individual beans were the Aztec legal tender. 100 beans could
buy a slave or a wife.
Aztecs drank chocolate as a drink. It was prepared with Mexico?s native
vanilla bean and sweetened with honey. Sometimes it was thickened with
corn flour. There was also a fermented version of this. I have enjoyed a
great many different forms of chocolate in the streets of Oaxaca, Mexico.
Oaxaca is the central processing city for today?s Mexican chocolate
empire.
European missionaries so loved chocolate that they returned to Europe
with it and developed new ways to experience its wonderful flavors.
Even the humble vanilla bean, which was only used to enhance the
chocolate, was developed into the flavor we now enjoy today. I guess
Cortez did indeed find great treasure in that room.
In modern Mexico I will be the first to admit that the chocolate bar made
in Mexico is not really a treat. In fact an ashtray full of ashes may be a
better thing to waste calories on. I do not like Mexican chocolate candy.
Missionaries did a great job by bringing this gift to the world back to
Europe to find the best way to process it for it?s true wonderful flavor and
texture.
Mexico has perfected it as a drink. Which was how they enjoyed it in the
first place. I have been to the factories where chocolate is processed in
Mexico. You can go in and choose your grade of beans. It is then
delivered to a machine, which roasts and grinds it into a thick dark liquid.
Then it is blended with sugar, almonds, and true cinnamon. It is then
poured into molds and left to cool and packaged.
To make the drink you heat milk and melt in a bar of the chocolate. Then
you whip it with a chocolate whip until a nice froth forms on the top. It is
poured into a bowl and drank. It is a wonderful flavor that cannot be
matched by anything else. This recipe is a close match but nothing will
really taste like it tastes in Oaxaca. It is an experience all its own.
| I have just finished my first cookbook from which I have copied this recipe for my hot chocolate. If you are interested in obtaining a copy please write me at barbaranicaud@hotmail.com and I will tell how to get it. Thank you, Barbara Nicaud |
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