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Cocoa Nuts in Sugar

Coated roasted cocoa kernels with water, cinnamon, and powdered sugar, optionally decorated with nonpareils.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,437 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Cocoa Nuts in Sugar

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Moisten roasted cocoa kernels with orange-flower water or clear water mixed with essence of cinnamon.

  2. Add enough powdered sugar to form a paste.

  3. Wrap the nuts in the paste, similar to pistachios.

  4. Optionally, add nonpareils or place them in papers cut at both ends.

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. Orange + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Cocoa + cinnamontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together74 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  4. Cocoa + orangetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together53 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Cocoa kernels
Provide the main chocolate flavour and the body of each nut-shaped centre.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and, dissolved in the liquid, forms the paste that holds the coating together.
Orange-flower water
Supplies the moisture that lets the sugar bind into a workable paste, with a light floral aroma.

The step that matters

Forming the paste. Add the powdered sugar gradually. Sugar dissolves into the added liquid and thickens it. Too little sugar leaves a wet paste that won't hold its shape, while too much makes it dry and crumbly, so it can't be wrapped smoothly around the nuts.

Swap the cocoa

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Cocoathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against orange, 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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