Chocolate with almond, ginger and cayenne #FLRoyalFood

While I continue my hunt for stocks of barley for the Week 4 Barley soup experiment, here's another experiment in Georgian chocolate. Although I enjoyed the one I made last week, I really could only drink it as a special treat as I found it so rich.  This one is simpler with fewer flavours and no cream.  It is simply water, chocolate, almond meal, ginger and cayenne.  But what a delicious combination!  The chocolate does have some vanilla and sugar in it so that is part of the mix.  It is certainly a nice mid-morning drink for a chilly Melbourne winter day.

Ingredients

30 gr Lindt 90% chocolate (with sugar and vanilla)
1 tbs almond meal
1/2 tsp chopped ginger root
1/2 tsp cayenne
1 cup boiling water


Mode

Place the almond meal in a small dish
Add chopped ginger root
Sprinkle with cayenne
Stir to combine and leave to absorb flavours
Break the chocolote into pieces and set aside
Boil the water in a briki and turn down the heat
Add chocolate and stir until dissolved
Add the almond meal mixture
Stir to combine well
Whisk and pour into a teacup to serve.

Anne's "Georgian" chocolate

My Futurelearn course this week is focusing on the time of George I and one of the topics under discussion has been his personal chocolate maker and the role of chocolate, that exotic import, in royal and palace life. I have many pictures in my mind of languorous women in Georgette Heyer sipping chocolate in their beds of a morning, albeit maybe in the time of a later George.

Chocolate was often mixed with wine or port to make a drink and we were shown a demonstration of how to make that.  However, I explored a bit further and found various recipes made with water and/or milk (rather than alcohol) and spices.  I particularly liked one where the sugar was first soaked in rosewater. There are also examples of spices like cardomon and cayenne being used, and I may try a combination like that another time.

So this is just one I came up with as a result of my reading and using, on a whole, things I had in the house.  I did buy some chocolate! I got a Lindt 90% cocoa which had sugar and vanilla in it, so I didn't add sugar as would normally have been done in the time of George I. And I made it with a combination of water, rosewater and cream as I don't like milk. I used aniseed essence, but you could make it with ouzo though I doubt that it was drunk at the court of George I. I made it in my briki, but you could do it in a saucepan. Enjoy!

Ingredients

30 gr Lindt 90% chocolate (with sugar and vanilla)
2 tbs almond meal
Cinnamon
Nutmeg
1 tsp aniseed essence
2 tbs rosewater
1 cup boiling water
2 tbs thick cream

Mode

Place the almond meal in a small dish
Sprinkle with cinnamon and nutmeg
Add aniseed essence and rosewater
Stir to combine and leave to absorb flavours
Break the chocolote into pieces and set aside
Boil the water in a briki and turn down the heat
Add chocolate and stir until dissolved
Add the almond meal mixture and stir
Add the cream  and combine well
Whisk and pour into a teacup to serve.