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Dessert

Chocolate Syrup

A sweet chocolate syrup made by simmering chocolate cake, cocoa, sugar, and water, finished with vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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. In a saucepan, combine the chopped chocolate cake, powdered cocoa, sugar, and water.

  2. Heat over medium heat, stirring until the mixture is smooth and well combined.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla extract.

Cool

  1. Allow to cool before using.

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. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Powdered cocoa
Provides the chocolate flavour and dark colour of the syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and helps it thicken as it cooks.
Chocolate cake
Adds chocolate flavour and body to the syrup.

The step that matters

Heat until smooth. Stirring over medium heat helps the cocoa and sugar dissolve fully into the water. Undissolved cocoa can leave a grainy texture, so the mixture should be checked until it is smooth before removing it from the heat.

Swap the cocoa

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chocolate, sugar, 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.

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