Name: Maricel’s 17th-Century Hot Chocolate (Chocolate Caliente de Maricel, Siglo XVII)
Yield: Serves 8 to 10
Cuisine: Spanish
Ingredients: 2 medium-size cinnamon sticks, preferably canela (Ceylon cinnamon); ¼ ounce dried rose buds (rosa de Castilla) (see box); 1 tablespoon aniseed; 2 plump vanilla beans, preferably Mexican; 12 blanched almonds; 12 toasted hazelnuts, skinned; 1 tablespoon orange flower water (optional) Sugar; 8 ounces best-quality bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped; 1 medium-size pinch of salt; 2 whole dried arbol or serrano chiles; 8 cups water or whole milk; ¼ cup achiote (annatto) seeds

Preparation info

Serves
8 to 10

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

The New Spanish Table

By Anya von Bremzen

Published 2005

About

My friend Maricel Presilla is amazing. A brilliant chef and restaurateur with a PhD in medieval Spanish history, she is an expert in the cuisines of Latin America and one of the world’s preeminent chocolate scholars, as evident in her erudite tome The New Taste of Chocolate. Adapted from a recipe in her book, this ho