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Dessert

Chocolate Squares

Chocolate squares made with eggs, powdered sugar, chocolate, spices, flour, baking powder, and jelly filling, rolled in powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Chocolate Squares

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Beat the egg whites and yolks separately.

Make the batter

  1. Mix the yolks with salt, powdered sugar, melted chocolate, allspice, cinnamon, flour, and baking powder.

  2. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

  3. Pour the batter into a well-greased baking pan.

Bake and assemble

  1. Bake until set, then cut in half and spread jelly between the layers.

  2. Cut into squares and roll in powdered sugar.

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. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Chocolate + cinnamontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,808 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Allspice + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,302 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Eggs
Whipped whites trap air for lift, and the yolks add richness and structure to the batter.
Flour
Provides the starch and gluten network that sets the batter into a cake-like crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the squares rise and stay light.
Sweet chocolate
Adds its deep flavor and color to the batter.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and gives the outer coating its sweetness.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the beaten egg whites. The whites hold air bubbles that give the batter its lift. Stirring vigorously deflates them, so the squares bake up dense instead of light.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicethe original
  4. Gingerfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, chocolate, cinnamon, flour. 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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