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Dessert

Chocolate Cream Wafers

Chocolate cream wafers are sugar and chocolate confections made by boiling sugar, cooling, coating with chocolate, and setting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 Cream Wafers

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine sugar, water, and cream of tartar in a copper kettle.

  2. Stir until the mixture boils.

  3. Wash down the sides of the pan.

  4. Cover with a wooden lid. Steam for 5 minutes.

  5. Remove the cover. Insert a thermometer.

  6. Cook to 238°F (114°C). Remove from heat.

  7. Pour onto a clean, cool slab. Let it cool.

Make the cream

  1. Melt the chocolate. Pour the melted chocolate over the cooled mixture.

  2. Use a steel paddle to mix briskly until it creams.

  3. Cover with a damp cloth. Let it mellow for 45 minutes.

  4. Knead the cream.

  5. Place it in a steam bath. Stir until thin enough for use.

Shape the wafers

  1. Drop onto heavy wax paper. Let it 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. 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. Sugar + creamtop 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

Sugar
Forms the syrup that sets into a smooth, fine-textured cream when worked.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the syrup, helping prevent crystallisation so the cream stays smooth.
Liquor chocolate
Supplies the chocolate flavour and fat that give the cream its body.

The step that matters

Cook to 238°F (114°C). Sugar syrup must reach the correct concentration before cooling. Undercooking leaves the cream soft and runny, while overcooking makes it hard and brittle.

“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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