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Vanilla Chocolate Drops

Chocolate drops flavored with vanilla, cinnamon, cloves, ambergris, and powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 ↓

Vanilla Chocolate Drops

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spice sugar

  1. Pound the chocolate, vanilla, cinnamon, cloves, and ambergris in a metal mortar with ½ cup of powdered sugar.

  2. Sift the mixture through a silk sieve and combine it with the remaining sugar.

Make the drops

  1. Warm an iron or metal mortar and add 1 lb. of chocolate, pounding it until melted.

  2. Add the mixed ingredients to the melted chocolate and pound until well combined.

  3. Drop small amounts of the mixture onto paper to cool.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Vanilla + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  3. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Vanilla + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,049 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

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

Chocolate
Forms the main body of the drops and sets firm as it cools.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the mixture and adds bulk to the chocolate.
Vanilla
Adds aromatic flavour that complements the chocolate.
Cinnamon
Adds warm spice aroma and flavour.
Cloves
Adds a strong, warm aromatic flavour.

The step that matters

Pounding the chocolate until melted and combined. Chocolate must be melted gently and fully before the dry mixture is added, because overheating can make it seize or separate, and incomplete blending leaves grainy streaks in the drops.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Allspicefits about as well

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