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Dessert

Chocolate Icing

A glaze made from melted chocolate, boiling water, egg, and sugar.

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 Icing

Ingredients

Directions

Melt and combine

  1. Melt the chocolate in a small double boiler.

  2. Add the boiling water and mix well.

Cook and finish

  1. Once cool, stir in the beaten egg and sugar.

  2. Place the mixture on the stove and heat until perfectly smooth.

  3. Add flavoring if desired and use.

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. Egg + sugartop 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

Unsweetened baker's chocolate
Provides the main chocolate flavor and fat, and sets firm as it cools.
Well beaten egg
Adds richness and body to the icing.
Sugar
Sweetens the icing and helps give it a smooth texture.

The step that matters

Heating the mixture with the egg. Once the egg is stirred in, the mixture must be heated gently and stirred constantly. Egg proteins set when they get hot, so too much heat or no stirring can make the icing grainy or lumpy instead of perfectly smooth.

“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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