Skip to main content
Dessert

Chocolate Syrup

A sweet chocolate syrup made by mixing powdered chocolate and cocoa with water, then heating with simple syrup and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cocoa and vanilla work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 357 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Chocolate Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Mix the chocolate powders and make a thin paste with cold water.

  2. Heat the simple syrup to boiling and add it in a thin stream while stirring vigorously.

  3. Use without straining.

Second method

  1. For the second method, triturate the chocolate with enough hot water to form a smooth paste.

  2. Add the syrup and heat to boiling.

  3. When cool, strain through cheesecloth and add the vanilla essence.

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. Cocoa + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together357 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Chocolate + cocoatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together165 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-ethyl-3,6-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

  4. Syrup + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Chocolate + syruptop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,239 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Powdered cocoa
Provides the chocolate flavor and dark color of the syrup.
Powdered chocolate
Adds deeper chocolate flavor and body to the syrup.
Simple syrup
Sweetens the syrup and gives it a pourable, fluid body.

The step that matters

Adding the syrup in a thin stream while stirring vigorously. Pouring the hot syrup slowly while stirring keeps the cocoa paste from clumping and lets it blend into a smooth, even syrup instead of lumps.

Swap the cocoa

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chocolate, syrup, vanilla):

  1. Hazelnutfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Almondfits better
  4. Cocoathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chocolate, syrup, vanilla. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.

You might also like

Chocolate CreamChocolate Cream171 recipesVanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesChocolate CookiesChocolate Cookies76 recipesChocolate FudgeChocolate Fudge55 recipes