Cacao lends itself very readily to such preliminary treatment.  In a first-class article, the beans should be of the highest excellence; they should be carefully grown on the plantation and there prepared with great skill, arriving in the factory in good condition.  In the factory they should simply receive the mechanical treatment requisite to develop their high and attractive natural flavor and fragrance.  They should be most carefully shelled after roasting and finely ground without concealed additions.  This is the process in all honest manufactories of the cacao products.

Now, as a matter of fact, in the preparation of many of the cacao products on the market, a wholly different course has been pursued.  Beans of poor quality are used, because of their cheapness, and in some instances they are only imperfectly, if at all, shelled before grinding.  Chemical treatment is relied on to correct in part the odor and taste of such inferior goods, and artificial flavors, other than the time-honored natural vanilla and the like, are added freely.  The detection of such imposition is easy enough to the expert, but is difficult to the novice; therefore the public is largely unable to discriminate between the good and the inferior, and it is perforce compelled to depend almost entirely on the character and reputation of the manufacturer.

A distinguished London Physician, in giving some hints concerning the proper preparation of cocoa, says: 

“Start with a pure cocoa of undoubted quality and excellence of manufacture, and which bears the name of a respectable firm.  This point is important, for there are many cocoas on the market which have been doctored by the addition of alkali, starch, malt, kola, hops, etc.”

Baker’s Breakfast Cocoa is absolutely pure, and, being ground to an extraordinary degree of fineness, is highly soluble.  The analyst of the Massachusetts State Board of Health states in his recent valuable work on “Food Inspection and Analysis,” that the treatment of cocoa with alkali for the purpose of producing a more perfect emulsion is objectionable, even if not considered as a form of adulteration.  Cocoa thus treated is generally darker in color than the pure article.  The legitimate means, he says, for making it as soluble as possible is to pulverize it very fine, so that particles remain in even suspension and form a smooth paste.

That is the way the Baker Cocoa is treated.  It has received the Grand Prize—­the highest award ever given in this country, and altogether 52 highest awards in Europe and America.

Choice Recipes by Miss Maria Parloa

Specially prepared for Walter Baker & Co.  Ltd.

PLAIN CHOCOLATE

For six people, use one quart of milk, two ounces of Walter Baker & Co.’s Premium No. 1 Chocolate, one tablespoonful of cornstarch, three tablespoonfuls of sugar, and two tablespoonfuls of hot water.