[Sca-cooks] OOP: 18th c. chocolate (was Weight of candied orange peel?)

[Robin Carroll-Mann]

On 18 Sep 2002, at 22:10, Ron Carnegie wrote:

> At 07:04 PM 9/18/02 -0400, you wrote:
> >Thank you!  The chocolate bizcochos were somewhat insipid, but
> >I've had better luck with another recipe, which is rather like a
> >citrus- flavored madeleine.  (Yes, I'll post the recipe once I get it
> >tweaked.)

>    Don't expect your usual modern effect from chocalate in 18th
>    century
> cooking, it is used different.  It has far more in common with
> chocalate's use in Spain and Mexico.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "modern effect".  This is an
18th century Spanish recipe for a bizcocho -- an egg-leavened
cookie.  It contains eggs, flour, sugar, and chocolate.  Everything
except the eggs is supposed to be ground and sifted.

I used unsweetened Mexican table chocolate, which I ground in a
mini food processor.  In retrospect, it was a bit coarse, and I
probably should have ground it in the blender with some of the
sugar to get a finer texture.  The grains of chocolate did not
completely melt and blend, and they gave the cookies a speckled
appearance (like old-fashioned linoleum), and a mild chocolate
flavor.


Brighid ni Chiarain *** mka Robin Carroll-Mann
Barony of Settmour Swamp, East Kingdom
rcmann4 at earthlink.net