The second Bagpuss annual contains a number of games and things to make. One of these is a recipe for Chocolate Obols.
Madeleine told the mice they would need:
A big piece of plasticene or modelling material.
A lump of cooking chocolate
Some cooking foil
Some old coins or medals or buttons with carvings on
two large plates, a saucepan lin, a rolling pin and a spoon.
The mice brought all these things and set them in a line. "Right," said Madeleine, "we will begin."
She broke the chocolate into lumps and put it on a plate with the saucepad lid on top in a place where it would go soft but not melt. | |
Then she rolled out the plasticene until it was like pastry and put it on the other plate. | |
Then she cut out squares of foil twice the width of the coins and put one of them down on a corner of the plasticene. "Bring me a coin", she said. The mice brought her Professor Yaffle's Obol. | |
Madeleine pressed the obol so hard on to the foil on the plasticene that when she lifted the coin the mice saw that the shape of it was moulded into the foil-covered plasticene. They did this with several other coins, and then put the plate in the fridge to cool and harden the plasticene. | |
Soon the chocolate was soft enough to push about easily but not so soft it was runny. They fetched the plate of moulds out of the fridge, and using the back of the spoon, the mice filled the moulds with soft chocolate. | |
Then they put them back in the fridge to cool
and later they wrapped the loose foil carefully around the back of each lump and pulled it
out of the plasticene. "Look!" shouted the mice. "A brand new Silver Obol from Ancient Greece!" Professor Yaffle said: "Amazing, quite amazing!" ...and ate it. |