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Dessert

Vanilla Chocolate Drops

A confection of chocolate, vanilla, spices, and powdered sugar formed into small drops.

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 mixture

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

  2. Sift the mixture through a silk sieve.

  3. Combine it with the remaining sugar.

Make the drops

  1. Warm an iron or metal mortar.

  2. Pound 1 lb of chocolate until melted.

  3. Add the mixed ingredients to the melted chocolate.

  4. Pound until well combined.

  5. Drop small amounts onto paper to form drops.

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
Provides the main body and fat, and sets firm as it cools into drops.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and a fine, smooth texture to the mixture.
Vanilla
Adds a warm, aromatic flavor that rounds out the chocolate.
Cinnamon
Adds warm, spiced aroma to the chocolate.
Cloves
Adds strong, pungent spice aroma to the chocolate.

The step that matters

Pound until well combined. Chocolate must be fully melted and the sugar and spices evenly mixed in before dropping. Uneven mixing leaves gritty or streaky pockets, and overheating can cause the cocoa fat to separate and seize.

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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