260.—General Directions for Making Chocolate.
Provide yourself with an iron pestle and mortar, also a stone slab of a very fine grain about two feet square, and a rolling-pin of hard stone or iron. The stone must have an opening beneath in which to place a pot of burning charcoal to heat it. Warm the mortar and pestle by placing them on a stove, or charcoal may be used, until they are so hot that you can scarcely bear your hand against them. Wipe the mortar out clean, and put any convenient quantity of prepared nuts in it, which pound until they are reduced to an oily paste into which the pestle will sink with its own weight. Add fine powdered sugar to the chocolate paste. After it has been well pounded, the sugar must be in proportion of 3 lbs. to 4 lbs. of prepared cocoa. Continue to pound it until completely mixed; then put it in a pan and place it in the stove to keep warm. Take a portion of it and roll or grind it well on the stone slab with the roller, both being previously heated like the mortar until it is reduced to a smooth impalpable paste, which will melt in the mouth like butter when this is accomplished. Put it in another pan and keep it warm until the whole is similarly disposed of; then place it again on the stove, which must not be quite so warm as previously. Work it over again, and divide it into pieces of two, four, eight, or sixteen ounces each, which you put in tin mould. Give it a shake, and the chocolate will become flat. When cold, it will easily turn out.