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Dessert

Fudge Frosting

A chocolate frosting made with butter, cocoa, confectioner's sugar, milk, salt, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cocoa and vanilla work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 357 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Fudge Frosting

Ingredients

Directions

Make the fudge

  1. Melt the cocoa, sugar, butter, salt, and milk in a saucepan.

  2. Boil for eight minutes.

  3. Remove from heat, add vanilla, and beat until creamy.

Frost the cake

  1. Pour over cake to a thickness of ¼ inch.

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. Cocoa + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together357 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  5. Cocoa + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together643 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

Cocoa
Supplies the chocolate flavor and dark color of the frosting.
Confectioner's sugar
Provides sweetness and, once cooled and beaten, a smooth, creamy body.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, melting mouthfeel.
Milk
Supplies moisture that dissolves the sugar and cocoa into a pourable mixture.

The step that matters

Boil for eight minutes. Boiling evaporates water and concentrates the sugar, which sets the fudge firm. Too short a boil leaves it soft and runny, while too long makes it hard and grainy.

Swap the cocoa

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

  1. Almondfits about as well
  2. Cocoathe original
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Hazelnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, milk, 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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