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French Chocolate

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and cocoa 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 ↓

French Chocolate

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Rub the vanilla beans into a powder with the sugar.

  2. Mix the powdered vanilla with the cocoa-nibs and sugar.

  3. Press the mixture into molds.

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. Vanilla + cocoatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together357 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Beans + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,293 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  4. Beans + cocoatop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Beans + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,587 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Vanilla and sugar 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

Swap the beans

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Nutsfits better
  3. Pistachiofits about as well
  4. Beansthe original

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

More french chocolate recipes

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