Cookware · Tools
Molinillo
A carved wooden whisk you spin between your palms: chocolate that foams instead of sitting in the pot.
The journey
Mexican chocolate is not stirred with a spoon if you can help it. A molinillo — a turned wooden whisk — is spun between the palms in a warm pot of chocolate, water or milk, and sometimes cinnamon, until the surface foams. Four recipes in the Mexican volume name it because the foam is the drink.
A balloon whisk can move the liquid. It will not make the same ceremonial noise in a quiet kitchen.
In the kitchen
Melt the chocolate with the liquid over a low flame. Set the molinillo in the pot, rub your palms, and keep going until the foam stands. Serve at once.
The Mexican book treats this tool as the difference between cocoa and chocolate de metate.