Name: Chocolate
Ingredients: 1 cake of chocolate; 1 pint boiling water; milk; sugar

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

Ingredients

1 cake of chocolate
1 pint boiling water
milk
sugar

Directions

Make the chocolate base

Place the chocolate into a pint of boiling water.
Remove from heat and stir until melted.
Boil gently for a few minutes.

Cool

Pour into a basin and cool for several days.

Serve

When ready to serve, mix with milk and sugar.
For a thicker consistency, strain and mix with gruel.

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.

Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,404 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Chocolate + milktop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,128 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Chocolate: Provides the main chocolate flavour and body once melted into the hot water.
Milk: Adds creaminess and thins the chocolate base when mixed in for serving.
Sugar: Adds sweetness to balance the bitterness of the chocolate.

“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.