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Dessert

Walnut Chocolate Drops

A sweet treat made from powdered sugar, water, chocolate, and walnuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Chocolate and walnut are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,548 recipes. Both carry 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine, which smells roasted, nutty. The science ↓

Walnut Chocolate Drops

Ingredients

Directions

Make the fondant

  1. Boil the powdered sugar and cold water for 5 minutes.

  2. Place the mixture in a pan of cold water and beat until cool enough to form into balls.

  3. Press a walnut into the center of each ball.

Coat and finish

  1. Melt the chocolate in a bowl set over a boiling kettle.

  2. Once the drops are cool, roll them in the melted chocolate using a fork.

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 + walnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

  2. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sugar + walnuttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Powdered sugar
Forms the sweet base that sets into a firm, shapeable mixture when cooled.
Cold water
Dissolves the sugar so the boiled mixture can be beaten into a smooth paste.
Chocolate
Forms the sweet, glossy coating that hardens around each drop.
Walnuts
Adds crunch and a nutty flavor at the center of each drop.

The step that matters

Boil the powdered sugar and cold water for 5 minutes.. Boiling dissolves the sugar fully and concentrates the syrup, which determines whether the mixture will set firm enough to shape into balls. Boiling too little leaves it soft and sticky; boiling too long makes it hard to beat.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Hazelnutfits better
  2. Almondfits better
  3. Peanutfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, chocolate. 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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