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Dessert

Chocolate Biscuits

Chocolate biscuits made with biscuit paste, vanilla, egg white, sugar, and chocolate icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and chocolate are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,020 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Chocolate Biscuits

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Bake the biscuits

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Place biscuit paste flavored with vanilla into large paper or tin cases and bake without icing.

  3. Once baked and cooled, cut the biscuits into squares, lozenges, or desired shapes.

Ice and finish

  1. Make royal icing by mixing the egg white with fine sifted sugar and melted scraped chocolate until liquid and shiny.

  2. Spread the icing over the biscuits with a knife and dry them at the mouth of the oven.

  3. Color the icing as desired by adding 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. Vanilla + chocolatetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

  3. Biscuit + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together422 recipes

    Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Biscuit + chocolatetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together334 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg white
Forms the base of the royal icing, giving it body and a glossy, set finish.
Fine sifted sugar
Sweetens the icing and helps it set smooth and firm as it dries.
Scraped chocolate
Flavors the icing and adds richness and color to the biscuit topping.

The step that matters

Dry the iced biscuits at the mouth of the oven. Royal icing sets by drying rather than baking. Too much heat can crack it, brown it or cause it to weep, so it should dry gently until firm and shiny.

“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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