Skip to main content
Dessert

Chocolate Drops

Chocolate drops are small chocolate lumps coated in white nonpareil sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Chocolate Drops

Why it works: Chocolate and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,404 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Chocolate Drops

Ingredients

Directions

Make the chocolate base

  1. Scrape and melt the chocolate in a small pan, stirring constantly.

  2. Gradually add the sifted sugar and the butter to keep the mixture smooth.

Shape and finish

  1. Keep the mixture warm and drop small round lumps onto a surface, about the size of a small nutmeg.

  2. Flatten the lumps slightly and cover them with white nonpareil sugar plums.

  3. Let them stand to harden before removing.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Butter + plumtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together710 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Chocolate + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,543 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + plumtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,313 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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 gives them their flavor.
Lump sugar
Sweetens the mixture and helps it set firm as it cools.
Butter
Adds fat that keeps the melted mixture smooth and gives a softer texture.

The step that matters

Keep the mixture smooth while adding sugar and butter. Adding sugar too quickly to melted chocolate can cause it to seize or turn grainy. Adding it gradually while stirring lets the sugar dissolve evenly and keeps the fat emulsified, so the drops set smooth.

Swap the plum

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Plumthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chocolate, sugar, butter. 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.

You might also like

Chocolate CreamChocolate Cream171 recipesChocolate CookiesChocolate Cookies76 recipesChocolate FudgeChocolate Fudge55 recipesChocolate CakeChocolate Cake32 recipes