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Dessert

Chocolate Frosting

A frosting made from grated chocolate, sugar, water, and egg white, beaten until smooth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Chocolate and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,404 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Chocolate Frosting

Ingredients

Directions

Make the chocolate syrup

  1. Grate the chocolate and combine it with sugar and a little water in a saucepan.

  2. Boil the mixture until it forms a soft ball when dropped into cold water.

Finish and spread

  1. Beat the egg white until stiff peaks form.

  2. Slowly pour the chocolate mixture into the egg white while beating continuously.

  3. Continue beating until the frosting is nearly cool, then spread it on the cake.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Chocolate + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,448 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptenal (green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Chocolate
Provides the flavour and colour of the frosting and firms as it cools.
Sugar
Dissolves into the chocolate and, boiled, helps the frosting set to a soft ball.
Egg white
Whipped to stiff peaks, it aerates the frosting and gives it a light, fluffy body.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot chocolate mixture into the egg white. Pour slowly while beating constantly so the hot syrup cooks and blends into the foam evenly rather than scrambling the egg white or deflating it into lumps.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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