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Dessert

Italian Chocolate Creams

A confection of sugar, water, acetic acid, egg whites, and bitter chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and chocolate 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 ↓

Italian Chocolate Creams

Ingredients

Directions

Make the fondant base

  1. In a kettle, combine the sugar with enough water to dissolve it.

  2. While cooking, add the acetic acid and cook until the mixture reaches 236°F (113°C).

  3. Pour the mixture onto a slab and let it cool completely.

Make the creams

  1. Once cool, work the mixture with a spatula until it begins to turn.

  2. Add the beaten egg whites and continue to work the batch until finished.

  3. Roll into small pieces and immediately coat with bitter chocolate.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Egg + chocolatetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,448 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptenal (green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Granulated sugar
Forms the cooked syrup that cools into the soft, sweet creamy base.
Acetic acid
Acidity that helps keep the sugar syrup smooth by discouraging large crystals.
Egg whites
Whipped foam that lightens the fondant and gives the creams a softer, airy texture.

The step that matters

Cooling the cooked syrup before working it. Sugar syrup must cool completely before it is worked; stirring hot syrup produces large crystals and a grainy texture instead of a smooth, creamy one.

“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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