I’ve gone 47 years without knowing that.
Believe it or not, another waiter told me about this, yeeears ago. It’s like some dark art for non-coffee patrons. It was a ritual when I came to see my nephews, too.
We used a small amount of milk instead; especially when the restaurant is cheap about it.
THE PLOT NO LONGER CLUMPENS!
Cocoa is definitely gonna clump up this way just making the paste if you don’t have enough liquid to rehydrate the entire amount. Especially if you try to do it with cold liquid.
The real trick is to add it slowly while stirring. Like you’re adding the milk when making custard or the sugar for merangue.
Just add the powder after adding the hot water. Mix while adding. Profit.
Who the fuck is going to make a paste to avoid clumping?
Me. Because I don’t like the clumps. Also, you do it while the water is heating up. It’s not like it takes extra time.
Okay - I will have to give this a try. Usually adding the powder to the hot water while mixing is sufficient.
I used to have problems with clumps. I still do, but I used to as well.
For the most part I now make things in batches. Hot chocolate, tea, whatever. With big batches I can use the mixing bowl and use the immersion blender. Nothing stays clumpy when you have a blade whizzing around at 3000+ rpm.
rip mitch
Jokes on you, I love the clumps of chocolate in milk with cocoa powder.
Same if you make mac and cheese with powdered cheese. Make a roux, make the sauce, then mix the sauce into the noodles.
Any mac’n’cheese recipe that involves silent consonants is too fancy for my mac’n’cheese…
That’s rough. I mean, rof.
That’s literally what “instantized” means, though. 😅
I do this with cold milk or creamer when making hot chocolate. Make a nice paste by continuously mixing it while waiting for the water to boil is plenty good enough and makes it much tastier!
Same technique as making and integrating a cornstarch slurry to thicken a soup.
is there nothing Americans won’t add corn products to?
I was going to say gasoline, but actually no, not really.
If you add hot water to corn starch, you’re gonna have a bad time. And clumps.
(Use cold water to make the paste, then add that to the heated liquid you want to thicken via corn starch, FYI.)
Usually I mix cold water and starch in a jar and shake the fuck out of it, then pour it into the sauce or soup or whatever
Now the real fun is doing 5 gallons of soup, breaking out the industrial immersion blender and xanthum gum.
Blender > clumps.
The blender is greater than the clumps?
One would hope.
How does that improve the slurry method above?
In my experience 5 gallons of soup will need about 15 picograms of xanthan gum! That shit is powerful!
