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Drink

How to Prepare Cocoa Nibs

A beverage made by boiling cocoa nibs in water, straining, and mixing with milk and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Charles Elme Francatelli · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cocoa and milk work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 643 recipes. Both carry methyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

How to Prepare Cocoa Nibs

four persons

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cocoa

  1. Boil gently two ounces of cocoa nibs in three pints of water for two hours and a half, without allowing it to reduce more than one-third; that is, the three pints should be boiled down to one quart.

  2. When sufficiently boiled, strain the cocoa from the nibs.

Finish the drink

  1. Mix it with equal proportions of milk.

  2. Sweeten with sugar.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

353Calories
9 gProtein
17 gFat
42 gCarbs

Counts 3 of 4 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 3 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Chocolate1 oz (28g) semisweet155
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Charles Elme Francatelli. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures. See the original page.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cocoa + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together643 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  2. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Cocoa + sugartop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together956 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cocoa nibs
Provide the chocolate flavour that is extracted into the water during long gentle boiling.
Skim milk
Mellows the bitterness of the cocoa and adds a smooth, creamy body.
Moist sugar
Sweetens the drink and balances the bitterness of the cocoa.

The step that matters

Boil gently and stop at one quart. Gentle simmering extracts cocoa flavour slowly, while boiling hard or reducing too far can scorch the liquid and concentrate bitterness. Stopping at one quart keeps the strength and volume the recipe expects.

Swap the cocoa

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar):

  1. Cocoathe original
  2. Almondfits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Peanutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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