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Chocolate Vanilla Creams

Chocolate vanilla cream balls coated in chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Chocolate and vanilla 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 Vanilla Creams

Ingredients

Directions

Make the centres

  1. Boil the cream and powdered sugar for 5 minutes.

  2. Divide the mixture into small balls while hot.

Coat and cool

  1. Heat the grated chocolate over a double boiler until soft.

  2. Dip the balls in the melted chocolate.

  3. Set the chocolate-covered balls aside on wax paper to cool.

  4. Add vanilla extract to the cream mixture before cooking if desired.

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Cream + chocolatetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and vanilla 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

Cream
Adds moisture and a soft, creamy texture to the centres.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the centres and firms as the boiled mixture cools, so it holds its shape.
Grated chocolate
Melts into a coating that forms a shell around each ball.

The step that matters

Divide the mixture into balls while hot. The boiled cream and sugar mixture firms up as it cools, so it must be shaped while still hot and soft, before it sets too stiff to form neat balls.

“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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