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Dessert

Chocolate Cakes and Puffs

A chocolate dessert made with chocolate, currant jelly, gelatin, sherry, curacao, extracts, and eggs, set in molds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Currant and sherry work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 393 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Chocolate Cakes and Puffs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Melt the chocolate and prepare the currant jelly.

  2. Soak the gelatine in water until soft.

  3. Dissolve the gelatine in the sherry.

  4. Add the Curacao and extracts to the mixture.

  5. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs until fluffy.

Combine and set

  1. Combine all ingredients. Mix well.

  2. Pour into molds.

  3. Refrigerate until set.

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. Currant + sherrytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together393 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Chocolate + sherrytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together94 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Chocolate + curranttop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together111 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Chocolate + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,448 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptenal (green).

  5. Currant + eggtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Beaten eggs add air and body, giving the puffs a light, airy texture.
Gelatine
Sets the mixture as it cools, giving the puffs their firm, sliceable structure.
Chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavour and richness, and adds body to the mixture.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and fruity acidity that balances the rich chocolate.

The step that matters

Beat the eggs until fluffy. Whipped eggs trap air that gives the puffs their lightness. Under-beaten eggs produce dense results, and over-mixing after folding in can knock out that air before the mixture sets.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pineapplefits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chocolate, sherry, egg. 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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