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Dessert

Chocolate Fudge

A sweet chocolate fudge made with cream, sugar, butter, melted chocolate, vanilla, and walnuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Chocolate Fudge

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 Fudge

Ingredients

Directions

Make the fudge

  1. In a saucepan, combine cream or milk, sugar, and butter.

  2. Boil the mixture until it threads.

  3. Add the melted chocolate and boil briskly for 10 minutes.

  4. Stir in vanilla and crushed walnuts.

  5. Beat the mixture until it begins to grain.

Set and serve

  1. Pour into a platter and let cool.

  2. Once cool, mark into squares.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Vanilla + walnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,730 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

Granulated sugar
Dissolves to form the sweet base and, with cooking, sets into a crystalline fudge texture.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and fat, giving the fudge a smooth, rich body.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, softer bite.
Baker's chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavour and adds fat that firms the fudge as it cools.
Walnuts
Add crunch and a toasty, nutty contrast to the soft fudge.

The step that matters

Beating until it begins to grain. Beating while the sugar syrup cools lets small sugar crystals form. Beat too early or too long and the fudge can set hard or grainy, so stop once it loses its gloss and starts to thicken.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, sugar, egg, butter, chocolate, vanilla):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Hazelnutfits better
  3. Pecansfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar, egg, butter, chocolate, vanilla. 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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