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Dessert

Spiced Chocolate

A chocolate candy flavored with allspice, cloves, cinnamon, and optional mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Spiced Chocolate

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Spiced Chocolate

Ingredients

Directions

Make the chocolate

  1. In a saucepan, combine brown sugar, hot water, grated chocolate, and butter.

  2. Boil the mixture until thick, testing by dropping a spoonful into cold water; if it hardens, remove from heat.

  3. Stir in allspice, ground cloves, cinnamon, and mace if desired.

Set and cut

  1. Pour the mixture into buttered tins and let cool.

  2. Once cool, cut into desired slices.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Allspice + macetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Brown sugar
Provides sweetness and bulk, and sets firm as the mixture cools and thickens.
Grated chocolate
Gives the candy its chocolate flavour and rich body.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother texture and a softer bite.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour.
Ground cloves
Adds strong, warm aroma in small amounts.
Cinnamon
Adds sweet, warm aroma that complements the chocolate.

The step that matters

Boiling until thick. Sugar candy sets by concentrating sugar as water boils off. Too little boiling leaves it soft and sticky, while too much makes it hard and brittle. The cold-water test shows when the syrup has reached the right concentration.

Swap the mace

The recipe marks mace as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, chocolate, egg, butter, allspice, clove, cinnamon):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, chocolate, egg, butter, allspice, clove, cinnamon. 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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