When researching a story, something I read started me wondering if my 1870s heroine would bake a chocolate cake for that
church social she was planning to attend. Since cocoa manufacturing
was being done in the American colonies by 1765 in Dorchester,
Massachusetts, she just might have.
Cocoa is the chocolate powder made by pressing
most of the cocoa butter from ground and roasted beans, leaving behind powder
and cocoa butter. In 1847, Fry and Sons, an English company, combined cocoa
butter with chocolate liquor and sugar to produce what we know today as chocolate.
In
1876, Daniel Peter of Switzerland added dried milk to make
milk chocolate. Milton Hershey, after seeing the German’s chocolate processing
machinery at the World's Columbian
Exposition of 1893, started his own chocolate company. And the rest is history.
Interesting to know some of the history of choc!
ReplyDeleteMy own favs are Thorntons.
I'm not sure I've ever had Thorntons. Something to add to my bucket list.
DeleteI live in York, a city with a big history of chocolate manufacturing. The Quakers were very much associated with the industry in the UK, and really looked after the workforce.
ReplyDeleteI had no idea the Quakers were in the chocolate business. Thanks.
DeleteChocolate--just another way to get high without losing consciousness. LOL
ReplyDeleteSo many countries in Europe are known for their chocolate--Germany and Switzerland, etc... I did not know the Quakers were so associated with chocolate in the UK. I found that particularly interesting.
So, in your story, you did make that chocolate cake using cocoa. Was cocoa expensive in that time period?
All the best to you, Tracey...
Sarah, I never specified the flavor of the cake, only that it was a failure that collapsed in the middle and she tried to cover fill the crater with icing. :) That was Lizzy in Wild Texas Hearts.
DeleteThanks, Tracy. Fun to know some of chocolate's history. When I visited chocolatiers in Costa Rica, they mentioned Nestle's history, but not Hershey's so I enjoyed learning this new information.
ReplyDeleteI may not like chocolate, but I do love history. I will say, I haven't found a chocolate recipe in any of my pioneer cookbooks, but that doesn't mean it didn't exist. I have found where the Olmecs and other early peoples used to drink it. Doris
ReplyDeleteI used to read a lot of history books years ago, and remember in one book how some explorer brought Chocolate to England and it became all the rage with the aristocracy......or was that coffee....or both? Now I have to go to Google and look it up as I cannot remember the explorer who was credited with this. Quite a few years ago I took my mom with me to a conference in Seattle. We went a few days early and took a lot of excursions around the beautiful city, and one experience was visiting a chocolate factory. The tour was great, but the "tasting" was even better
ReplyDelete