Hull History Centre

 History Bakers: Chocolate Melting Moments (The Great British Bake Off - Week 5 – Chocolate)

To tie in with the Great British Bake Off this year staff at the History Centre have decided to gather historic recipes and try them out. With chocolate week just gone here is one of our chocolate themed recipes.

For chocolate related recipes we had to look in the slightly more recent collections for recipe ideas the chocolate bar itself not being invented until 1847. This took me to one of our recipe books from the Anlaby Road Methodist wives and mothers club (C DCT/1716/1/11) from around the 1950s. This was a collection of recipes from some of the members of the club and this particular recipe was submitted by a Marianne Boyd.

Image: C DCT/1716/1/11 - Recipe for Chocolate Melting Moments

Initially, it grabbed my attention because on Bake Off this week I believe someone made melting moments for an element of their ‘showstopper’ and I’d not really seen them before so was keen to try them out! I looked at the recipe and figured they looked easy enough to make, the recipe was certainly very simple!

I decided firstly that I would double the recipe mainly because I thought if I was cracking an egg I might as well use as much as possible. However, even when doubling it, I was a bit disappointed with the number it produced. So, if you want to make more than say 15-20 of these, I’d maybe triple the recipe (I still had some egg left over!) 

Image: Ingredients for the recipe

Once I’d converted the ingredients to metric, I began by creaming the margarine and sugar. I thought for accuracy’s sake I’d do this by hand and found it came together very easily.

I then added the egg, I’ve never come across measuring egg in teaspoons before, it’s a strange substance to try and measure in quite a small spoon! At this point I realised I didn’t have any vanilla, and I didn’t fancy a trip out so instead I opted to leave it out, I added a drop more egg and hoped the chocolate would be the dominant flavour anyway!

I don’t know if you spotted it, but I realised at this point that the recipe itself had left out the key ingredient - the cocoa! (Sorry Marianne to point out your mistake!) I assumed this could be sieved in with the flour and added my best guess of 2 dessertspoons full. The mixture at this point looked amazing and it did take some willpower not to eat it out the bowl!

Image: 1. Creaming butter & sugar           2. Adding the egg                       3. Mixing in the cocoa 

The final step was to roll into balls and coat in the oats. The mixture was definitely stickier than I thought it might have been for this process but apart making a bit of a mess it worked well.

Image: 1. Rolling the oats                   2. Consequences 

I popped them in the oven at a guessed temperature of about 170 C for 10 minutes. They spread out and hardened a little, so I took them out to cool and harden a bit further before feeding them to my housemates and colleagues for their feedback.

Image: The finished Chocolate                

Melting Moments

Beth – oaty, sweet but not too sweet, a very nice texture!

Rosemary – like a mixture between a flapjack and a soft shortbread. Very good though, tastes nice!

Sol – Really enjoyable! The flavour of the oats and cocoa together was very nice, and the texture was great.

Soft and chocolatey – very nice

Kyle – Very chocolatey and crumbly. Couldn’t really taste the oats.

Caoimhe – Great combination – didn’t taste ‘too chocolatey’ – delicious!

Overall, a very simple and enjoyable recipe to make with excellent melt in the mouth results!