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Drink

Cocoa

A hot cocoa beverage made by simmering cocoa nibs in water and serving with boiling milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Cocoa

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 ↓

Cocoa

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the nibs

  1. Roast cocoa nibs if fresh.

  2. Rub the roasted nibs through a sieve.

Make the cocoa

  1. In a coffee pot, combine ½ teacup of nibs with 1 pint of boiling water.

  2. Bring to a boil.

  3. Reduce heat and simmer for 3 to 4 hours.

  4. Strain the cocoa.

Store and serve

  1. Store the strained cocoa for a few days.

  2. Serve hot with boiling milk.

  3. Pour it out like Café au Lait.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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).

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

What each ingredient does

Cocoa nibs
Supply the chocolate flavor and much of the body of the drink.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the bitterness of the cocoa.

The step that matters

Reduce heat and simmer gently. Once the mixture reaches a boil, a lower heat keeps it from boiling hard and reducing too quickly. Over a long simmer, vigorous boiling can scorch the solids and make the cocoa taste bitter.

“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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