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Drink

Chocolate

A simple chocolate milk made by melting chocolate with sugar and water, then mixing into milk.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the chocolate base

  1. Scrape the chocolate into fine pieces.

  2. In a small saucepan, combine the chocolate, sugar, and hot water.

  3. Stir over medium heat for 1-2 minutes until smooth and glossy.

Finish and serve

  1. Pour the chocolate mixture into boiling milk (or half milk and half water) and mix thoroughly.

  2. Serve immediately.

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. Chocolate + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Plain chocolate
Provides the cocoa flavor and the body of the drink.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the chocolate dissolve smoothly in the hot water.
Milk
Forms the liquid base and adds creaminess and body to the drink.

The step that matters

Stirring the chocolate until smooth before adding it to the milk. Chocolate left in lumps or only partly melted will not blend evenly into the milk. Stirring it into a smooth, glossy paste first lets it disperse fully when poured into the hot milk.

“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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