Breads with Chocolate – Recipes from 1909

Chocolate and breads go hand in hand, as evidenced by the typical breakfast breads chocolate pain au chocolat (one of my favorites – croissant dough rolled around a stick of chocolate), nutella and toast, and chocolate chip muffins.

It was also popular at the turn of the 20th century, as written in Chocolate and Cocoa Recipes published in 1909 by Walter Baker & Co. All the recipes use one form or another of the company’s chocolate.

Here are some recipes to try using breads and chocolate.

Cocoa Doughnuts

One egg, one-half a cup of sugar, one-half a cup of milk, one-quarter teaspoonful of salt, one-quarter teaspoonful of cinnamon extract (Burnett’s), two cups of flour, one-quarter cup of Baker’s Breakfast Cocoa, two teaspoonfuls of baking powder. Mix in the order given, sifting the baking powder and cocoa with the flour. Roll to one-third an inch in thickness, cut and fry.

Cocoa Buns

• 2 tablespoonfuls of butter
• 1/3 a cup of sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/4 a teaspoonful of salt
• 1 cup of scalded milk
• 2 compressed yeast cakes softened in 1/2 a cup of warm water
• 1/4 a teaspoonful of extract cinnamon
• 1/2 a cup of Baker’s Breakfast Cocoa
• 3 1/2 to 4 cups of flour

Mix in order given, having dough as soft as can be handled, turn onto moulding board, roll into a square about an inch in thickness, sprinkle on one-half cup of currants, fold the sides to meet the centre, then each end to centre, and fold again. Roll as at first, using another one-half cup currants, fold, roll and fold again. Place in a bowl which is set in pan of warm water, let raise forty minutes. Shape, place in pan, let raise until doubled in size. Bake fifteen to twenty minutes. As you take from oven, brush the top with white of one egg beaten with one-half cup confectioners’ sugar. Let stand five minutes. Then they are ready to serve.

Chocolate Gingerbread

Mix in a large bowl one cupful of molasses, half a cupful of sour milk or cream, one teaspoonful of ginger, one of cinnamon, half a teaspoonful of salt. Dissolve one teaspoonful of soda in a teaspoonful of cold water; add this and two tablespoonfuls of melted butter to the mixture. Now stir in two cupfuls of sifted flour, and finally add two ounces of Walter Baker & Co.’s Chocolate and one tablespoonful of butter, melted together. Pour the mixture into three well-buttered, deep tin plates, and bake in a moderately hot oven for about twenty minutes.